I got my Beginner’s Soy Candle Making Kit via UPS today. This, along with my recent rediscovery of baking chocolate in the cupboard, drove me to be experimental tonight.
Experiment #1: Quick and Easy Fudgey (Low-Carb) Brownies
I had previously looked at the recipe in the Hershey’s box and discovered that the only bad things in the brownie recipe were flour and sugar. So, this weekend, we purchased some almond flour and a pourable box of Splenda to take care of those naughty ingredients. Tonight, I took the plunge and baked the brownies, with the intention of bringing them to work tomorrow for a goodbye-to-Lockbox-early snack.
Experiment #1 Result: Marginal Success
Maybe I halved the recipe wrong. Maybe the almond flour was a poor idea. At any rate, the brownies were not fudgey, neither were they fluffy. In fact, they were rather dry, though moderately cakey. I’m not going to take them to work. At six carbs a brownie, though, they’re not a complete failure. Maybe they’d work well with some vanilla Atkins ice cream…
Experiment #2: Soy Candles
In my candlemaking kit was two pounds of soy wax, several ounces of fragrance, a small brick of dye, six wicks with metal clips/stands, and three warning labels. Oh, yes, and instructions, which I carefully followed. I melted about 16 oz of wax in a glass container in the microwave, then added some dye, then added (oops) twice as much fragrance as I should have. Ah, well. So far, so good. I attempted to stand the wicks in the containers I’d chosen (purchased from Goodwill this weekend), and finally glued them in place as suggested. Note to self: next time, either melt the wax in a container with a spout, or locate an appropriate funnel through which to pour the wax. It’s a good thing I put newspaper under the containers, otherwise I would have "waxed" our kitchen table. The wicks, of course, immediately heated and wilted off to the side; I had to wait until the wax cooled a little to ever-so-carefully balance and center them.
Experiment #2: Moderate Success
As mentioned, the wax got everywhere during the pouring process, which makes for a very unpretty container. The two candles are of different sizes, too, due to me freaking out about getting wax everywhere and not concentrating more on getting equal amounts of wax in each candle. And don’t forget that I added waaay too much eggnog fragrance. I actually guessed well about the amount of dye to melt in, though — but even so, they could have been just a little lighter.
Overall, I intend to try both of these experiments again, being better prepared and working on improving my techniques. I didn’t expect both of these to be stellar on the first try (certainly not the candles, though I had higher hopes for the brownies). I’ve already taste-tested the brownies; I think I’m going to go see if the candles have finished setting, and do a test burn. Mmm… eggnog.
Update: midnight
I don’t think I added an excessive amount of fragrance to my candle. In fact, I could have added more. I’m also a little unsure of the containers I chose — I think they’re a little wide for the burn pool. (That’s the area of melted wax.) Overall, though, still a successful experiment.
I also repotted a bunch of my plants today — I broke apart the remnants of the "dish garden" I got at Memaw’s funeral, since most of it was dead from lack of light and water. (Hey, I couldn’t find a good place to put it where it would get plenty of light and where I’d remember to water it.) So, I salvaged two plants from that. While I was at it, I potted the Christmas cactus that’s been living in a vase full of water for the past two years. Then I thought I was done, and started to rearrange pots and saucers on my one well-lighted shelf o’ plants… and discovered that my spider plant had roots growing out of its watering hole in the bottom of the pot. So, back outside to repot the spider in my only remaining sizable pot, which is a good full foot in diameter. It should have plenty of room to stretch out now.
