I Roll Roll Roll the Soap!

This is for a soap challenge I got myself into.  The mission is to incorporate 3 ingredients into our soap plus one assigned tool to create the look.  In this specific challenge we had to use egg, milk and sugar in making our soap.  That's not hard at all, I've used all 3 so many different times.  The hard part is the tool I was assigned to create my look.  I got a rolling pin...  This is the soap I created with all the circumstances:

I had 7 days to complete my look.  I don't know why on earth I had to make it so complicated.  This took me 9 days! I didn't make my deadline… sigh.

This was a 3 stage process.  The first pour was to make 3 different color soap.  Then I take them out to roll with THE assigned rolling pin when they are only 24 hours fresh.

I had to use lots of saran wrap to prevent fresh soap from sticking to my wooden rolling pin.  A lot of people thought I made the soap roll with melt & pour soap.  But I think fresh cold process soap is actually easier to manipulate, I can mold it to anything I like until I'm satisfied with it.  and yes, I got a little OCD, took me the whole night to roll out 3 identical sheets of soap...

Stage 2 is to insert this rolled soap into a vertical column mold then pour the second batch of soap.

Final stage is to take the soap roll out when it's hard enough (the next day) and whip up a small batch to drizzle on top then sprinkle some sugar pearl together with glitter.

My hard work paid off!  These are literally hand cut, with a kitchen knife because of its round shape and all that random drizzle.  You should see the last piece, so slanted, LOL

They are so totally adorable!  But, I swear, I will never ever do this again!  Forget it!  This really pushed my patience to the tipping point.  Remember my Rainbow Cake Soap from last year?  I don't know which one is worse.  If you wonder what rainbow soap I was talking about see this post: Rainbow Cake Soap Fun

Cake Soap in a Roll

I don't make cake and cupcake soap as often, probably only by request or during holiday season when people are looking for one of a kind gifting ideas.  Cake or cupcake soap although looking very pretty and eye catching, they are somehow impractical to use as soap.  I love making cake soap only because it can inspire my inner most creativity. This past holiday season I decided to try some new pipping techniques.  Have you heard of scallop technique?  Check out this easy tutorial: Simple Scalloped Birthday Cake 
I didn't want to follow the traditional scallop pipping which usually is horizontal lay out, I decided to use if as drapery, vertically.

And to give the typical scallop pipping technique a twist, I used Wilton's open star pipping tip:

Then smear with a tiny spoon from center up to create that scallop edged dimple then embed a sugar pearl inside.

This second one is not as inventive, but surely as time consuming to make.  The overflow dripping "cream" is the hardest to create for me, I just don't seem to be able to time the right soap consistency.

This 3rd one is my own spontaneous try.  I was hoping to get a ribbon icicle or tassel look:

I used Wilton ribbon tip like this one:

My husband's favorite is when I pipe poppy flowers:

Maybe I will do a short video clip to show how I do them later so be on the watch out if you are interested!

Rainbow Cake Soap Fun

Days ago I saw this link on Facebook about making a rainbow cake loaf, it got me very excited!  Normal people see cake, I see soap!

 

This is a very time consuming project, it needs to be made in multiple stages, actually very similar to baking a cake and then decorate it.  To start, I went to home improvement store and bought a sheet of plastic corrugated panel, it's lightweight but non stick and not that hard to cut.  I made myself a cheap mold so I can make a skinny loaf of soap.

I used banana blended in coconut milk to make the "cake."  The speckles from banana is perfect for imitating an actual cake don't you think?

The next day I unmolded the soap and made some whipped soap for icing to cover all 5 sides.  Curious about what whipped soap is?!  Well, I got it covered, see this post about making whipped soap: How to Make Whipped Soap

The reason I used whipped soap for icing is so I would have plenty of play time to get it all smooth and pretty.  And whipped soap texture is the closest to the real texture of cake icing or whipped cream.  This is the time consuming part.  After slapping on the whipped soap with a knife I started using a silicone scraper to smooth all sides out back and forwards many passes.

The last stage is the color drizzles.  This is the part that went crazy on me.  Splitting a very small batch of soap into 7 colors is not a good idea.  I was not able to keep the soap batter fluid enough, it was more like icing than syrup.  Instead of drizzling on the "cake" top, I had to improvise and scoop each color soap into a sheet of saran wrap each, scrunched up all sides, poke a tiny hole at the center and squeeze it like a pipping bag.

They look like rainbow worms crawling all over my cake soap!

Here is the cut to see how it looks like inside.  Why not make a white cake inside just like the inspiration photo?  Well,

 my design concept is you only get to see a piece of rainbow right after a stormy sky, never see a rainbow in a perfectly bright sunny day!

What Goes into Soap Cake Making

Soap cake making definitely takes more time and requires more attention to details and planning, pretty much like baking a real special occasion cake!  It's so time consuming plus the fact that people always think it's too pretty to use that makes me not wanting to do more often.  The easiest soap cake is done all in one step, pour the cake and make enough soap batter to set aside for pipping.

But then you see the bare sides when you cut into slices.

I wanted to try more like a real decorated cake, make the body first then pipe the whole entire outside.  In this case I cannot do it in one step.  I have to pour the cake body first, have it firm enough to take it out of the mold the next day.

 I really like this marble look, felt bad to move on to the 2nd stage of covering it up with "frosting".  But everything was ready and waiting to go.  At least I took some pictures before I covered it up.

 Unfortunately I underestimated the amount of frosting I need (shows you baking is not my thing, LOL).  This 2 step project soon became 3 steps...

I meant to pipe rosettes all over the cake sides and top but the pipping tip I have is too big for the job.  It looks so easy watching youtube videos of pastry chefs decorating their cakes but when I actually did it myself... oh boy.

Dilema when cutting, couldn't see where to cut, had to constantly look under the cake to find the inner points of the "petal" shaped cake.  Drawing cut lines on top of all that pipping is proven difficult.  It looks very pretty, but I don't know if I would decorate a cake this way anymore.  I have to agree with my husband, it is so not practical!