Giant bubble stuff

 My stepmother has been making brilliant giant bubbles with all the kids and introduced s to them last year. They are so fun for all ages! And seemed surprisingly easy. So I thought we could try them at home…

She buys a powder from the internet and it works amazing. But I am not sure I can import that powder to Denmark easily. And I had some xanthan gum from vintage gf baking, and thought we could try some experiments…

We experimented with a few things, in the end this recipe is the best so far so I’m sticking with it. If the xanthan gum supplies run out perhaps I’ll start experimenting again (or buy the powder from the internet!). The powder is definitely better, but this works pretty good.

For one bubble wand:
2 lengths of dowel - approximately 1 cm thick and 40cm long
2 eyelet screws
Cotton string

Washer (or 5 kr piece)

For the bubble mixture:
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tbsp glycerin
3 cups warm water
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 tsp baking powder

To make the bubble mixture, first mix the xanthan gum and glycerin in a tub until smooth. Add the warm water gradually, beating. It’ll thicken. Add the washing up liquid. Mix in baking powder. Leave for at least 24 hours before use - longer if possible.

To make the wand, take two equal length pieces of dowel and drill holes in the ends big enough to put the eyelet screws in. Put in the eyelet screws. Tie the string so there is one shorter piece and one longer piece that has the washer on it, so it makes an approximately equilateral triangle when you hold it up. We tried a few different strings and some were very tangly - you want quite a thick one - we ended up using old strings from hoodie hoods.

Easter 2021: Pace Eggs

At some point I fell down an Easter google bunny hole, wherein I discovered that the Pace Egg is not only a peculiar play at Heptonstall, but also the name for beautifully dyed boiled eggs. Also the word 'pace' is closer to 'påske' (Danish for Easter) than 'easter', making me wonder about origins of both traditions. I've tried dyeing eggs naturally before but it didn't work that well, probably boiling is the trick. I used mainly this recipe, but took the tip about using flowers and leaves from this one.

 **save red and brown onion skins for a few weeks before Easter!**

Eggs

Onion skins

Small, pretty flowers and leaves (e.g. curly parsley)

Dampen the eggs, then press leaves or flowers (could also try cutting shapes from larger leaves, or plastic bags) gently onto them to stick.

Wrap onion skins (red, brown, or a mixture) around the eggs, covering the leaves/flowers.

Wrap tinfoil around the onion skins, encasing the egg.

Put the eggs in a pan along with the rest of the onion skins. Cover with water and bring to the boil.

Boil approx. 8 min, then let cool in the water.

Remove the wrapping carefully to see the pattern. Polish with a little butter to make them shine, if you wish.

They are mainly decorative - they are edible, but not the best-tasting boiled egg you ever had.

I tried shapes made from paper, but it didn't work very well - perhaps could cut shapes from larger leaves instead? I considered other dyes (turmeric? red cabbage? beets?) - but the beauty of onion skins, besides the good strong colour, is that it makes use of something I'd otherwise throw out.

Bath bomb

Little s got into baths a lot over Christmas - he got to have a few proper baths at Auntie S's house, she has a full-size bathtub. So bubbles and high jinks proceeded, and we continued the vibes after we returned to our little folding bath, by stocking up on bath bombs at the shopping centre. It struck me a few bath bombs in, while removing various little bits of plastic packaging and breathing in the super-synthetic scent, that perhaps we could make them ourselves. I found this recipe and incredibly had all the ingredients, so thought we should give it a whirl - figured s would be up for helping me make them, and it might make him quicker to jump in the bath!

(makes 1 medium or 2 small bath bombs - this is half the original recipe, once we've cracked it and passed the test phase it'd be worth making more at a time)

50 g bicarbonate of soda

25 g citric acid

12.5 g cornflour

12.5 g Epsom salts (optional - used them because we happened to have some laying around)

1 tbsp oil – such as sunflower, coconut or olive oil (we tried olive and coconut so far - olive seemed better than coconut - coconut left the bath and s a bit greasy)

1/8 tsp essential oil, such as orange, lavender or chamomile (we used rescue remedies cos that's what we had)

a few drops of liquid food colouring (or gel food coloring mixed with a few drops water)

orange peel, lavender or rose petals, to decorate (optional - we didn't try this yet, s wasn't into the idea)

little toys to hide in them (optional)

Put the bicarb, citric acid, cornflour and Epsom salt in a bowl, then mix with a fork until fully combined.

Pour the base oil, essential oil and food colouring in a small bowl (mix colouring with a few drops water first if using gel). Mix together well, combining the oil with the colouring as much as possible.

Very slowly add the oil mixture into the dry ingredients a little at a time, whisking between each addition. When all the oil is added, add a few tiny drops of water and whisk again (it will fizz when you add the water, so mix it in quickly). You're looking for the mixture to slightly clump together when pressed in your hand and keep its shape – it shouldn't be too wet.

If you're adding peel or flower petals to decorate, drop them into the bottom of your chosen mould. Pack your mixture tightly on top, pressing down and smoothing out the top with a teaspoon. If you're hiding a toy, put some mix in the bottom, then the toy, then pack the mix around it and on top as firmly as possible.

Leave your bath bomb in the mould to dry for 2-4 h, then carefully remove it. It's now ready to drop into the bath – watch it fizz away!

 

Worked quite well! s was v keen on hiding little toys in the middles of them, and choosing colours/scents. The first time we put in too much water and they didn't dry out properly and they lost their fizz. The second time we erred on the side of water-caution and they were a little bit crumbly but fizzed like proper bath bombs - hurrah. Used empty yoghurt pots for molds, but I think silicone muffin cups might work better.

Playdough

Lockdown means spending a lot of time at home, and also means spending more time with little S. The weather has been amazing, so we haven't been hanging out inside a whole lot, but I was thinking he might be into some playdough, so I put some food colouring on our biweekly shopping list... I used this recipe, and made one batch of pink-red and one of blue. Both needed a little extra flour to get a good consistency.

It was fun! It's been out twice now, and is still in the fridge for another go. We made some elephants, and buses, the first time. And the second time he played with it on one kitchen surface while I did some cooking on another.

8 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp salt
60 ml warm water
food colouring
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the water, a few drops of food colouring and the oil.

Pour the coloured water into the flour mix and bring together with a spoon.

Dust a work surface with a little flour and turn out the dough. Knead together for a few minutes to form a smooth, pliable dough. If you want a more intense colour you can work in a few extra drops of food colouring. Add more flour if needed.

Store in a plastic bag or wrapped in clingfilm in the fridge.

Easter egg decorating

I kicked the Easter holidays off with some egg dyeing experiments. I bought a big box of biodynamic white eggs, and used everything I could find in the kitchen to try and colour them. I wanted to make something for Sage to discover and play with, mainly. But was also curious to try different things.

Clockwise from top right: Egg blown (innards used for banana pancakes), then soaked in hot water containing a little vinegar and lots of turmeric - which made it pale yellow - then dipped in hot water containing green food colouring, a little vinegar, and some sunflower oil spattered on top; Egg hardboiled (9 min) in water containing salt, a little vinegar, and a lot of red onion skins - which made it hen's egg brown, with the colour seeming to stick in the pores but wipe off elsewhere; Egg hardboiled, then dipped in hot water containing green food colouring with a spatter of sunflower oil on top; Egg treated same as the first one; Egg hardboiled (9 min) in water containing salt, a little vinegar, and as much chopped red cabbage as I could fit in - turned the water a pretty purple shade but did nothing to the egg... so then I dunked it in the red onion skin water, and smeared it with frozen-defrosting blueberries... and the purple one is one of small S's egg shaker toys.

Of the natural colours I tried, the turmeric gave by far the strongest/nicest colour - although I might try again with blueberries and raspberries, they also had potential (but I didn't want to waste them). And my cabbage didn't seem to have as strong a colour as other red cabbages, actually - could maybe try again. Or maybe use a different approach - instead of putting stuff in the cooking water could try making a puree or extract and rubbing it directly onto the egg like with the blueberries... The effect I like best is the marbling with oil on coloured water though - I guess food colouring is designed to stick well and look good...

Beeswax candles

I have been hoarding beeswax for a while - edges and pieces and cappings from when harvesting honey. So it's not pure - still contains unevenness and odd bits of honey or bee, although I usually rinse it (honey vodka aka honning syppe!), drain it and air dry it as well as I can... and then was thinking about what to do with it... I decided to try to make candles this time - and to try putting them into jars instead of moulds. Sooo this is what I did.

For the moulds and wick:
2 clean small (c 100 ml volume) jars with lids
thick (c. 2-3 mm) braided cotton string for wick
2 x 2 DKK coins (to use as wick weights)
tape and 2 toothpicks to keep wick in place

For the wax:
175 g beeswax
41 g coconut oil
(this should be good proportions of wax:oil to give a candle that burns well)
large jar for use in double boiler

First, estimate how much wax you have - weigh it. And how much you can fit into each jar - weigh volume of water that fits into each. Then make sure you prep an appropriate number of jars.

Next, prepare the moulds. Take a piece of wick, put one end of it through the hole in the middle of the coin and tie a knot to stop it slipping back through. Melt a little wax and use it to stick the coin+knot to the bottom of the jar in the middle. Bring the other end of the wick to the middle of the top of the jar, gently taut, and fix in place by taping to a toothpick (or similar) balanced and taped across the middle of the mouth of the jar. Cut the wick at the top of the jar for now. Prepare all moulds like this. They are now ready to fill.

I like to use a large jar that I do not need and can go in the recycling afterwards as the bowl of a double boiler (as the wax is a bit tricky to clean off thoroughly - don't put it down the drain). Melt beeswax and coconut oil together in the jar over nearly-boiling water. It takes a while, be patient and keep stirring. I did half the quantity (ie one mould's worth), then the other half. When the wax is melted, pour carefully into the prepared mould, up to approx the top of the straight sides, around 2 cm from the top, and let sit until solid. Repeat for the other wax and moulds. Let them sit, undisturbed, for a day or two to cure.

When ready to finish, remove the tape and toothpicks and trim the wick with small sharp scissors so it sits just inside the jar top. Put the lids on and decorate the jar as you wish. The candles are now ready to burn.


Note: you could add scent via essential oils, but I preferred the idea of just having a gentle coconutty / beeswax-y smell.

Lip balm

I used up a pot of lip balm for possibly the first time ever. It was some I'd got from my friend A - she makes it with wax from her beehives. I kept meaning to buy more and forgetting / not finding anything that looked nice. Then I came across some of those rolled beeswax candles D+S had brought back from India and given to me and a lightbulb went on. This is beeswax! And I will likely never use them as candles, so why not conduct a lip balm experiment? So eventually I got round to it, and it was ridiculously easy, and I am definitely never buying lip balm again, at least so long as I still have candles left to unroll...

1 part coconut oil
1 part beeswax
drop of essential oil, Vitamin E or a little honey (all optional, and be careful not to add more that a teeny bit of liquid)

Put the coconut oil and beeswax into a microwave proof container. Put in the microwave for a minute at a time, swirling in between, until the beeswax is all melted. Pour into empty lip balm container(s), and leave flat to cool - should be solid and ready to use in less than half an hour.

Notes:
* I just made one little lip balm pot because it takes me a while to get through it, but it would be very easy to scale up for gifts etc, so long as you have enough containers.
* Modify ratios of wax to oil if you'd like a harder or softer lip balm.
* Use virgin coconut oil (the tasty stuff) if you would like a coconutty smell/taste - I had only the tasteless one, which is good if you want a pretty much unscented lip balm.
* I didn't test adding other scents / flavours but any kind of oil should work (might need to increase beeswax proportion to compensate for more liquid).
* Remember to save and clean lip balm containers.
* I think the mixture should come off pretty well with hot water, but to avoid having to wash the container used for preparation afterwards you can always melt it in a used glass jar destined for recycling.

Sugaring wax

Sporadically, I wax my own legs at home. I always use sugaring wax rather than hardcore salon wax because it is so easy to wash off any drips or mistakes. Previously, I had bought it, but I just realised how it is basically just sugar and looked for a recipe. The only potentially awkward part was judging when it had reached the right consistency (like for caramel or jam) - I decided to give it a shot. This awesomely detailed recipe convinced me it was worth a try.

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water

Put all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat, stirring, until boiling. Boil gently for ~20 min, monitoring the colour carefully (by swirling and by checking drops on a white plate. When it is a light amber colour (the colour of typical runny honey) it should be ready. At this point a drop on a plate at room temperature should also become thick and sticky as it cools. Allow to cool slightly and transfer to a heatproof jar.

To use, put base of jar in a bowl of very hot water until the sugaring solution is slightly liquid. Stir with a plastic spatula and use the spatula to apply. Smooth on in direction of growth and use denim strips to remove quickly.


It worked really well! Very happy with it, and I reckon this quantity should do at least 10 half leg waxes.