Soap cakes and curing time?

[AshleyR]

I'm aiming to go into a few craft shows this year and I want to make a soap cake! For those of you that make and sell these, do you cut the bars prior to selling, and just arrange them to look like the cake is still intact? Or do you slice the soap for the customer as they buy it?

In the second case, do you tell the customer that they have to wait a few weeks before using the freshly cut soap? I know I can cure the soap cake, but since it's so big and thick, will it cure properly and be ready to use when the slices are cut later?

 

[ChrissyB]

Hi Ashley
I haven't made a big soap cake, like a bundt cake. But I can offer my thoughts! :?
I would think that if you cured the whole thing as one, by the time it is cured it will be mega hard to cut. Also, I think that there is some merit to the theory "the bigger the soap the longer it takes to cure".
SO....I would cut it and then arrange it, but maybe you could make whole ones and leave them all together for custom orders. I think Lindy has them on her website for custom orders. Hopefully she will come by here and tell you what she does!!

 

[Lindy]

Hi Ashley,

Once I unmold my soap cake I "ice" it and then let it sit for a couple of days, just to set up. After that I cut it into the finished pieces trying to keep them pretty much the same size. I then pull the pieces out of the cake so that they are still in a circle with their original placement in the cake and let them cure then for the normal 4 - 6 weeks. When I sell them I put them back together and place on a cake platter with lid. At the Farmer's Market in December the lady who runs the market came over and let me know that she had forgot to tell me they have some very specific rules about baking but since she didn't realize I was bringing cakes she hadn't told me. I told her they weren't cake cakes but Soap Cakes. She kinda looked at them, then me, then asked if they were supposed to look like real food style cakes and I let her know they were. She told me I had done a good job.....

Give yourself a couple months curing time and you can be guaranteed they will be a conversation starter at the table...

HTH

Lindy