Murder at Sunset

My daughter's favorite book is "An Exaltation of Larks", which lists many colorful names given to groups of things (not just birds). E.g.: an ostentation of peacocks, a parliament of owls, a charm of finches, a murmuration of starlings and -- of course -- a murder of crows.

I knew I wanted to do a sunset (which is actually a gradient, not an ombre, but still allowed), with something shown in silhouette. Enter my daughter again, as whenever we drive on highway 85 to my brother's place in Los Gatos, she's always got an eye out for the crow-covered telephone wire that spans it before our exit. So, a murder of crows at sunset it is. :)

Making them involved these basic steps:

1. Pour the gradient layers in a loaf mold
2. Unmold and cut the bars
3. Cut the silhouettes out of each bar with a cookie cutter
4. Put the cut bars into individual bar molds
   (securing them in place with soy wax)
5. Pour the black, wait, unmold and trim off any excess black

For each batch, I used 10 shades, and following Amy's advice, I didn't measure out my colorants, but instead tweaked the colors by eye, drop by drop. The orange I used was very frustrating, as no matter how much I mixed it, it was determined to make spots!

• Yellow: Micas and More's  Yellin' Yellow Neon
• Orange: Nurture Soap's Electric Orange + TKB Trading's Neon Red
• Pink: Micas and More's Radically Reddish Neon + TKB Trading's Rebord Soft Pink
• Purple: Micas and More's Vivid Violet Neon

I premixed these at 2:1 liquid coconut oil:mica, and put them in little dropper bottles. Because they're so bright, I just used a little to get the look I was going for, as inspired by this photo:

I ended up having to hack apart my meticulously designed and 3D-printed cutter, as it was totally wrong and impossible to use. This is it from TinkerCad.com:

The printed version is shown below, from my optimistic first attempt.

As you can see from the close-up below, the soap cracked when I tried to cut it. You can also see that the gradient isn't at all smooth, as I tried to use too many shades.

For my second try, I hacked up the cutter, but the batch ended up way too pink.

So, the third try, below, is the final one (shown with the dissected cutter parts).

They came out exactly as I'd planned, and look really cool in person (yeah!), but disappointingly blobby in photographs (boo!). They say the camera adds 10 pounds, but really? ;)

Recipe

I used my version of Soap Queen's Old Faithful recipe (swapping the Palm Oil for Lard):

• 32% Coconut Oil
• 32% Olive Oil
• 32% Lard
• 4% Castor

I mixed it with a wire whisk attachment on my stick blender until emulsified, then added 1 oz/ppo of Nurture Soap's 8th and Ocean mixed with my favorite decelerator (Nature's Garden White Tea & Ginger). The result is too sweet-smelling for me, but it was very well behaved.

I also used my standard 1.5:1 water:lye ratio and added a modest amount (for me!) of Sodium Lactate (0.25 oz/ppo), so it would be firm enough to hold its shape when unmolded, but not crack when I cut the birds.

As for the gradient layers, I measured out 10 equal amounts of batter, colored them and mixed them very well with a mini mixer (which I hate, as they're so under-powered and add bubbles, grrr!). I let it sit a bit to thicken up, then spooned in each layer and smoothed it out.

I CPOP'd both the loaf and the bars at 140F for an hour, then left them in the oven for another 3 hours.

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BTW, I was intrigued enough with all this to order my own 3D printer, which should be here tomorrow. Woot -- a new device to play with! :)

I think that most folks in the US have access to a 3D printer at their local library, but all ours are booked until next year; one of the problems with living in Silicon Valley. Otherwise, you can order prints from TinkerCad, like I did. It was pricier than I'd hoped ($12, including shipping), but came in less than a week.

Can you guess the first thing I want to make? A narrow mixer attachment for my big stick blender so I can stop using that stupid mini mixer! ;)

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Update (6/30/17)

After a few days of wrangling, we've got the BIBO 3D printer working. And as promised, here's my narrow mixer attachment:

It's very crude, and the mixer may be too powerful -- you can see that the green color + oil I mixed had it coming out of the top. I'm going to order a variable speed mixer, which may help, but I really need to add a hood to the attachment to make it work right.