Spin Swirl

It's official -- I love, love, love the spin swirl!

I first saw it on YouTube last year, and tried my hand at it in another challenge, but the results wren't impressive. And my first two attempts this time weren't much better.

But I really like how my third try turned out.

I had been planning another go after I poured this one, as the colors seemed dim, the swirls patterns murky, and the tops very unimpressive. But the colors morphed back, and when I cut it open everything was bright and well-defined. The good swirls were on the inside, as Amy showed us in her tutorial.

Recipe

I used a modified version of Amy's slow moving recipe, as I was worried my current favorite palm-soy blend would trace too quickly:

• 35% Costco Mediterranean Oil Blend (olive, canola and grape seed)
• 30% Lard (Walmart)
• 25% Coconut Oil - $20/gallon from Amazon (for popcorn, link)
• 7% Rice Bran Oil - Wholesale Supplies (link)
• 3% Castor Oil - Wholesale Supplies (link)
• 1.5:1 water:lye - discounted to minimize rivers (link) - DIY pre-mixed
• 1% Lemongrass, sage and tea tree essential oils
• No other additives (but only because I forgot the sodium lactate and sugar syrup, so my bars ended up softer than I'd like and with smaller bubbles)

Technique

One of the problems I'd had with previous attempts was in controlling the faux-funnel pour. So this time, I used squeeze bottles, and instead of pouring from above, I inserted the tip in and squeezed. Much better! Of course then I had to clean the bottles, but it was worth it.

I poured several layers of faux funnels, evenly spaced three across my homemade all-purpose, double-height, four-bar tray mold. I then spun the tray around so much that some escaped, partly because of the extra height (so I could cut them horizontally). Next time, I might try pouring and swirling in two passes, as it's hard to get the centers to distort without the sides mixing too much and slopping out.

BTW, I didn't like how flat the bars ended up in my previous batches, so I trimmed them down to make them better proportioned. So they are more like big guest-sized bars. They are still fairly detailed, though, because the squeeze bottles allowed for some super-fine lines.

Colors

I alternated 60% cream with 10% each of two greens and two pinks:

• Moss Green mica, link
• Khaki Yellow mica, link + Lemon Chiffon mica, link
• Soapberry Purple, link + Red #27, link
• Pink Vibrance mica, link

Sometimes I repeated the same color sequence and squeeze duration, and other times I mixed it up. The result kinda reminds me of our in-the-pot nebula swirl, but more structured and well-defined, and a bit like holiday candy. :)

Results

I won with this one, but it was really close, as there were so many beautiful entries!