Sunday Soap: A Cutting

 Whew. Last day of the TdF! While I am spinning into Paris let's talk soap. Remember this one from the rest day?

 I thought it would be fun to document the big reveal. After making soap it has to sit for 24 hours to harden enough to take out of the mold. I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve when I know there will be soap to cut in the morning. I can't wait.

 My new wood mold and silicon liner set is amazing. It just pops right out. No more squishing and squeezing. The problem is that is makes a lot of soap. The smallest mold that I can find like this one holds 2 pounds of batter. That's 7-8 bars per loaf. Yikes.

 Here is the loaf out of the liner. It doesn't look very promising at this stage does it?

 Anxiously, I cut off a thin slice on each end. The ends are always ugly so I use those slices for testing. Now you get to see if your design plan worked. This one did. I can breathe a sigh of relief.  This was a very luxurious batter meaning I used lots of pricey butter and oils in it. I would have not been too happy if it had been ugly.

 I can't cut straight at all even with my handy dandy cheese slicer.

 Look at that. The inside looks pretty good too. Whew. I had my doubts with this pour. Things got thick rather quickly and thick batter does not make nice swirls.

 Meet Baby Buttermilk with yoghurt and sal butter. It's supposed to smell like baby powder. I'm not so sure about that. I was expecting something more like Love's Baby Soft and I think this smells more like the plastic powder jar than the powder.  As usual I used only a hint of fragrance so we'll see if it holds true over the six week cure.

 Now it sits on a tray for 24 hours and then gets transferred to the drying racks tomorrow. I can avoid the rack marks on the bottom if I let it harden for a while on a flat surface. I go and turn it every few hours so all sides dry evenly.

There it is way up there, out of reach of curious kitties lording over my unruly knit stash. That cabinet is full of wrapped soap waiting for a good home. I can't wait for the hot weather to break so I can start mailing it off again. Hopefully by September I can start my monthly giveaways because I sure have a lot of good things to give away!