Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Soap

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie is my all time favorite pie to make and to eat!  I usually make 6-10 pies a summer to give away to my friends and family.  My husband and I even grow our own rhubarb in our backyard.  We have one huge plant that is starting to take over our yard.  It just gets bigger and bigger every year.

So, when I saw that Nature's Garden had a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie fragrance I just had to have it and make my very own soapy pie creation!!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Soap!

Well, to start off I wanted to have strawberry and rhubarb chunks incorporated into the soap but I didn't necessarily want them in the middle of the soap because when you cut into the soap you don't have so much of an identity to the cut chunks but more of a big pink-red spot.  I really wanted them to be more recognizable.  I decided that I wanted to put my pieces on the top of the soap and then cover them in a lattice top similar to my homemade pies.

To go about constructing the strawberries and rhubarb pieces I had to figure out what kind of mold I would like to use.  I wanted to use melt and pour so I knew that I would not really be able to hand form the pieces so I took to the internet and found a tutorial on YouTube from Sarah Milroy with Spicy Pinecone on how to make your own silicone molds from a tube of caulk.  You can buy molds for strawberries but I was up for an adventure and I wanted to learn something new.  I found the tutorial here. SO fun!

My strawberry silicone mold

I decided to use purple acrylic paint for my molds and they turned out great!  The only thing that I didn't anticipate was the smell . . . oh!  The smell was pretty horrible!  The silicone caulk had a very strong odor (I was mixing in my basement) and I quickly realized why Sarah was outside mixing her caulk and headed to a more ventilated area.  Pee-yew!!  

Filling my molds

When my silicone was fully mixed I blobbed some into a small plastic cup and stuck in my FROZEN (yes, frozen) strawberries point down.  I covered a small amount of the top of the berries and left a small hole.  I froze my strawberries for molding because I had a feeling that I was going to have to apply some pressure to the berries and I did not want the structure to be compromised from all of the pushing.  I let the silicone set for around 24 hours and then I removed the berries.  They were totally squishy and gross but came out, mostly, intact.  I let the molds sit for another 24 hours and then I "cleaned" them with melt and pour soap.  I just filled the molds with soap and let them harden and then removed it.  I used the same soap to clean the molds about 4x.  I wanted to make sure all of the seeds were removed from the silicone.  When the molds were all clean I melted my melt and pour and mixed in my beautiful micas and made myself about 10 strawberries.

The rhubarb pieces were slightly less labor intensive- slightly.  I used a 1 in PVC tube cut to about a foot long that I attempted to oil with sweet almond oil.  I slapped some plastic wrap and a rubber band on one end of the tube and poured my soap.  I thought the sweet almond oil was going to be sufficient to lubricate the tube, but, nope!  I pushed and pushed the soap from one end and then tried the other end and that soap did not budge.  I just tore up the end a bit.  Well, needless to say, I was a bit frustrated.  I decided to pop the whole tube in the microwave for 15 seconds and then give it another go.  Whoops!  It melted a little too much and when I pressed on the soap it gooed on me.  I left it to harden for around 15-30 minutes and then I gave it another push and my soap came right out!  YAY!!  I had a nice 10 in long piece of pink-red tubular soap that was slightly mashed on the ends!

I wanted the berries to lay flat on the top of the soap so I cut all of the strawberries in half and I cut the tube of "rhubarb" in half to have to half moon pieces and then I cut them into around 1/2 in pieces.  I gave them a good dusting of mica to give them a nice shimmer.

Mica covered strawberry halves and rhubarb pieces

When the embeds were ready it was then time to get to work making my Strawberry Rhubarb Soap!  I divided my soap into 4 different sections.  3 of the sections were used for an in the pot swirl and 1 of the sections was used for the "crust" layer.  I mixed the "crust" layer first and poured a little on the bottom of the mold to represent the bottom of the pie.  

Base soap with swirly top

Soap with embeds placed

Next, I used a pink mica, a pink mica mixed with red mica and titanium dioxide for the middle of the soap.  I did an in the pot swirl and them poured the soap on top of the "crust" layer.  Then, I did a little swirl on the top just for fun (left).  Almost too pretty to put the embeds on-- not!  Bring on the embeds!!  I placed the strawberry halves and the rhubarb pieces randomly on top of the base soap when it was still wet but firm enough to not sink through to the bottom (right).  Then, the soap was ready for the lattice top.

Bag ready for soap!

To make the lattice top I used the reserved "crust" portion of base soap from earlier.  By now the soap was thickening up nicely but it still was not thick enough to pipe with.  I was looking for a nice frosting consistency in order to be able to use my special tip.  I used a 47 Sunny Side Up tip from Hobby Lobby to achieve the look of a textured lattice top.  One side of the tip is ribbed and the other side is smooth.  I could have, easily, flipped the tip over and made a smooth line instead of the texture that I decided to use.  I waited another 10 minutes, or so, and then filled my piping bag and made a test strip on parchment paper.  At this point my soap was perfect for piping.  The texture was well defined and did not run or smooth out into a fat line when I piped the soap out.  Perfect!



Here is my final soap!  I decided to do a lattice top at an angle so you could see cross sections on the individual soap bars instead of random lines.  Looks good enough to eat!!  But, eating is not recommended . . . at all . . . not unless you want bad things to happen to your digestive system . . .

Look at that wet soap!

Awesome Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Soap!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Soap Slice

I definitely want to make this soap again.  Next time, I might make this in a round silicone pan so it is more pie shaped.  Also, a dollop of soapy whipped cream would have been nice on top.  Who doesn't love whipped cream?