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Tonight we made a batch of donuts from Deb's aunt's recipe. Of course we cooked them in a cast iron pot! It made 55 donuts, and they are wonderful! When Deb went to fill the pot with oil she remembered that she had forgotten to buy cooking oil today. I just happened to have a jug of olive oil...

My grandmother's cornbread recipe (as written down by my mother 30+ years ago) is perfect for an 8" cast iron skillet. I would like to scale it up to fit 10" and 12" skillets. Is it as simple as finding the volume of the skillets then increasing the ingredients to fit? Here's the recipe: 2...

Today whilst perusing the oils isle at my local Sam's Club, what did I spy but a whole stack of 8 pound tubs of Snow Cap lard! This is the first time I have ever found lard at Sam's. If my freezer wasn't already stuffed to the gills I would have picked up a tub or two. I don't remember the...

I can tolerate (and quite like) salt bars with 80% or so coconut oil and 20% sf and various percentages of salt, so I don't think I have a general intolerance to coconut oil. But any time I try to use much more than 5% CO in a "normal" recipe it makes me itchy. I have played with high olive...

Cleaning out the room in which I store all my "soaping stuff" I found a couple of tubs of Spectrum brand 100% palm oil shortening. One tub is about a month past the "best sold by" date, the other has several months to go. I had forgotten I had these (obviously).:crazy: I have been planning...

On our monthly trip to Sam's Club last month I found a big display of avocado oil. It was a little over $6 for a litre can of La Tourangelle, so I though I would try it... if nothing else I would have a nice can when it was gone. I still haven't used any, but today on our trip to Sam's I...

No knead sourdough bread baked in a cast iron dutch oven. This is just about the only bread I bake any more. This is for Sunday lunch, to go with spaghetti (with my home made meaty sauce).

Back in 2015 there were some discussions about substituting safflower oil for olive oil in soaps, and a few mentions of 100% safflower oil soap. I decided to give it a whirl, so according to my notes made a 2lb test batch on 10-24-15 with no additives, no colors, no scent. After a few...

I finally got around to using some in a batch of soap for my wife last weekend, and when I cut the log there was practically no scent at all. Is this one of those FO's that disappears for a while then comes back, or did I just not use enough? This was a 2.5lb batch of high lard CP soap, I used...

One of my aunts has a 96 year old friend who makes a soap for her that she really likes. This lady is getting on in years (!!!) and doesn't know how much longer she will be able to make soap, so I offered to take over making it for my aunt. I'll list the recipe here so y'all can comment if...

Home made buttermilk biscuits baked in an old cast iron skillet. It just doesn't get any better than this! Sorry the photo is so dark. By the time I looked at it the biscuits were gone, so I couldn't re shoot.

I have been talking to some of my aunts and cousins, and have discovered that my grandmothers on both sides of the family both made lye soap, something I never knew as I was a somewhat late addition to the family. We have all been digging through boxes looking for the recipes, but it looks...

A little over a month ago I was in the mood to make a batch of soap, but discovered that I was out of lard (oh no!!!). I did however, have an unopened can of Crisco in the freezer, so made up a batch of veggie soap using the following (yes, I ran it through SoapCalc): OO 50% Crisco (new...

You might recall that last time I tried scenting a soap I measured out my FO in a SOLO cup and it ate through the cup making a heck of a mess. Tonight I thought I would be smart, I used a small glass jar to measure out my FO. The problem is that those bottles the FO comes in are really not made...

I have been thinking about getting a crinkle cutter, and keep putting it off. Do y'all like the crinkle cut soaps? Do you find that other people like them, or really don't care? Yeah, I know it's not a big investment, it's just one of those things I can't make up my mind about. I keep...

With all the recent talk about slimy snotty castile, I just had to try it. I made a 2.5lb CP test batch on the 19th, using full water (which I now know wasn't the best thing to do), and using the "Daily Chef 100% pure olive oil" from Sam's. Of course I understand that it will need several...

One of the test batches I made Sunday was as follows: Olive Oil 70% Lard 25% Castor oil 5% SF @ 5% (as posted a while back by MorpheusPA) I poured this into a round shipping tube (perfect for a 2.5lb batch) lined with backless vinyl shelf paper, one of my favorite molds...

Re-reading some recent threads on milk soaps has given me the itch to try it in one of my favorite lard recipes. Looking at powdered milks in the local stores, all I see is non-fat powdered milk. Will this give the "milk soap" effect that people seem to be crazy about, even though the milk fat...

Has anyone ever had soap making trigger a migraine headache? My wife observed while I made some sample batches over the weekend, and yesterday afternoon / last night she had one of the worst migraines she has ever had. She is still recovering. This was the first time she had been present...

I ordered some FO's from FragranceBuddy strictly based on reviews (from here and elsewhere on the web) plus a little "that sounds good" factor. These are my very first scents, so I really had no idea what to expect, just wanted something to play around with. Opening the bottles, I have to say...