How to Make Soap
Directions from Mary Randolph's cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife, published in 1824 and updated in 1825 and 1828.
Difficulty Level: Hard Time Required: Up to 10 days
- Put on the fire any quantity of lie [lye] you chuse that is strong enough to bear an egg.
- To each gallon add three quarters of a pound of clean grease.
- Boil it very fast and stir it frequently, a few hours will suffice to make it good soap.
- When you find by cooling a little on a plate that it is a thick jelly and no grease appears, put in salt in the proportion of one pint to three gallons.
- Let it boil a few minutes.
- Pour into tubs to cool.
- Should the soap be thin, add a little water to that in the plate, stir well, and by that means ascertain how much water is necessary for the whole quantity. Do this before the salt is added.
- Next day, cut out the soap, melt it, and cool it again; this takes out all the lie, and keeps the soap from shrinking when dried.
Tips:
- A strict conformity to these rules will banish the lunary bugbear which has s long annoyed soap makers.
- Kitchen grease should be clarified in a quantity of water, or the salt will prevent its incorporation with the lie.
- Soft soap may be made by putting the lie and grease together in exact proportions, and placing it under the influence of a hot sun for eight or ten days, stirring it well four or five times a day.
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