Chocolate Mint Soap......Soap-fully It'll Be Good.............

Sunday was rainy and nasty, so while The Man left to go mushroom hunting over at our aunt and uncle's farm, I stayed home to mill some soap and do some other things.

I had the bright idea to make some chocolate mint soap so flying by the seat of my pants....away I went!

First I went out my front door to my flower bed and picked some chocolate mint.  

Then I brought it in and chopped it up, and put it in some goat milk in a pan on the stove and let it cook over a very slow heat, stirring it once in awhile and making sure not to let it stick.

Meanwhile, I got my grated soap ready to go......12 ounces of it.

After the mint and milk had cooked together till the mint was pretty wilty and the milk was a nice pale green and smelled really good....

 I strained the mint out and weighed the milk.... 

Then I poured 9 oz of minty milk into the grated soap.....

And let it melt down...

I had hoped that it would stay a nice mint green color, but that didn't happen, so I decided to go a different direction.......

I decided to add in some cocoa powder just for funsies....

Which made the soap look like this.....

I'm calling it Mint Brownie Batter

And then I had plenty of minty milk left over, so I made another batch, this time adding brown sugar and cinnamon....

I'm calling it Brown Sugar Cinnamon Mint....

Because I'm super creative like that....

And this is all the soap I've milled so far this year, from the basic soap I made a while ago...

It's all pretty mixed up, but straight across from left to right is Mint Brownie Batter, Brown Sugar Cinnamon Mint, Wheat Germ and Honey, and then that pretty golden colored bar is Lemongrass Cornmeal....

So this should give me plenty of soap to get through for quite awhile!

Till next time....

God Bless,

Making Soap - Goat's Milk, Honey, and Wheat Germ....Oh My!

So Sunday after church I decided to mill some of my basic soap down into a bit more of a luxurious product.

First I get all my ingredients together.  For this batch I'm using the basic soap, fresh goat's milk, local honey, and wheat germ......

Then I grate 12 oz of the basic block of soap....

And add it and the milk to my stainless steel pan that I only use for soap, and turn the burner on the lowest possible heat setting.....

You don't want to stir this too much as it's melting down or you'll wind up with lots of little bubbles in your soap.  This won't hurt anything, but it isn't something I want in my finished soap....

It will start out really thick, but as it heats up, it will turn much thinner...you want to just sort of lift and fold it every once in a while....

After it's almost totally melted down......

You add the honey......

And then you let it melt for a bit more to sort of scorch and add a nice color to the soap....

Then you take it off the heat, and add the wheat germ.....

And gently fold it in....

Then you let it cool down just a bit, to be sure the wheat germ doesn't settle to the bottom of the soap when you pour it in your molds, and now you pour it in the molds.....

Now you let the molds get sort of a skin on top, like a pudding skin, and then pop them in the freezer for about an hour or so.  You don't have to put them in the freezer if you don't want, it just makes taking it out of the molds quicker and easier.

And now you've got several bars of rich, creamy, wonderful soap!

Here I'm washing my hands with the scrapings off the spatula..

You need to let these bars dry for about 2 weeks to a month, depending on how dry the air is.  These contain milk and honey, so if you don't get them dried fast enough, they can and will mold.  They also can warp during the drying process, so it is helpful to occasionally turn them.

Soon they'll be ready to use and I'll be showering in milk and honey!

Till next time....

God Bless,