The Saga Begins with the Great Chocolate Search
March 31, 2008
We can blame this one too on Anne Watson. When she asked for volunteers to help with the research for the book, of course I raised my hand high in the air. Even before that she had been bouncing ideas off my head. So it was natural that I would get more involved. Little did she know what a monster she was creating. It wasn't too long before I started making milk soap myself, using her techniques. Then I got obsessed with making different kinds of milk soap. One night while at the store I grabbed a carton of chocolate milk for no real reason, other than I wanted to see how it would behave in the soap pot. Anne's comment was to the effect of if this works I'll have to do a recipe for the book. Naturally I again volunteered, this time to craft a recipe. Anne was delighted. It took a bit longer for her to convince her publisher husband to let me give her permission to use my recipe. However he did agree, to our great delight. My recipe will be in her book. Ergo, you won't be seeing it in this blog anytime soon. Sorry! It's wonderful soap.
And so the Great Chocolate Search was on. It has taken me from surfing the web, to the jungles of Africa where the cacao trees grow, to Willie Wonka's chocolate factory and back again in the search for the perfect bar of chocolate soap.
The picture attached to this blog entry is a summary of that journey. The row of bars in the middle are representatives of the batches I made searching for the right combination of ingredients. The three bars in front are the result. From one recipe you can get dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. The plate in back holds a batch I made just yesterday. That is a new recipe for the next step in what I am starting to think is Chocolate madness. Worry not about the color, this was just a test of a new recipe that may or may not be in the book. But I'll tell you more about that in coming days. That saga is just beginning.
Let the journey begin. The first batch had all chocolate milk, cocoa powder and baking chocolate. It was wonderful soap, dark brown with a lovely rich chocolate aroma. However the lather was brown and it had a distressing tendancy to leave brown gunk on the counter and in the soap dish. In the next batch I switched to half chocolate and half white milk. This produced a lovely soap that still smells like chocolate, without any FO. My next batch was made with all white milk. Guess what? It still smelled like chocolate. That's when it occurred to me that I could possibly make this recipe more useful if I could offer three types of chocolate soap for the price of one. Anne should have shot me and put me out of my misery at that point, but she encouraged me to keep going.
The rest of the batches had half white and half chocolate milk. The goal was to produce a soap that was darker and more chocolate smelling than the milk chocolate. I tried baking chocolate. That made a yummy smelling soap, but it had light brown lather and left gunk on everything. Next was part of a Hershey's candy bar. This was unsatisfactory. The candy was hard to melt and didn't greatly affect the soap. Next I made another batch of the milk chocolate soap more or less to check my findings. It was, as expected, a duplicate of the previous batch. The batch following was made with a smaller amount of baking chocolate. It was still leaving brown gunk on everything. The lather though was white. Another batch changed the proportions of white and chocolate milk. The higher amount of chocolate milk did not significantly change the color or aroma from that of the milk chocolate. That wasn't going to work either.
I am tearing my hair at this point. This has got to work, I told myself. While at the grocery store contemplating the various kinds of chocolate available I spied a bag of white chocolate chips. On impulse I made a batch of white chocolate with them and wow! Oh, the white chocolate soap has all white milk. The soap was still white, but now had a deeper chocolate aroma. Somehow this made me feel better.
Finally it occurred to me to try cocoa powder. After all people have been using it in soap for a long time. That worked! Well almost. The soap is wonderful with white lather, more or less. It has a very slight almost unnoticeable brownish tinge. The soap will leave a tiny bit of brown gunk behind if you leave it set in a wet spot. But the cocoa powder colors the soap beautifully. So one more batch with less cocoa powder and Anne will have her 3 in 1 chocolate soap recipe. The book is due out in November. So keep an eye on her. I've seen the manuscript. The recipes she has created for it are truly wonderful
Return to soap Journal index Blog