Mixed bath bombs: rose, coffee spice, and wildflower mix

Bath bombs are fun. They fizz. They smell nice. They are also very easy to make. The internet seems full of complicated recipes for making them. Here is an easy one, with optional additions to make it more exciting. Only requires one unusual ingredient and no special equipment!

Ingredients:

• citric acid, 1 cup
• baking soda, 2 cups
• epsom salt, 1/2 cup
• oatmeal, 1/2 cup (optional)
• flowers/herbs/spices, up to 1/2 cup (optional)
• water

Bath Bomb Ingredient Theory: The baking soda and citric acid are the essential ingredients that make up the bath bomb, the acid and base that constitute the chemical reaction. Epsom salt is good for baths in general, and supposedly helps the bath bombs dry faster. The oatmeal is just added because it’s soothing for the skin. Flowers and herbs are completely optional. They can change the scent and appearance of the bath bombs. Suggested flowers are: chamomile, lavender, rose, clover, hibiscus, etc.  For herbs and spices, you can add things like: cloves, cinnamon, orange peel, mint, etc. Try your own mixes. Some people also add oils for scent. Again, optional.

Where to Buy Citric Acid: You don’t need to jump through hoops here. Citric acid is available at most Indian and Arabic grocery stores. Natural food stores sell it too. Sometimes it’s labeled “sour salt.” You can buy it cheaper online, or course, but if you just want a small amount, you should be able to find it locally.

Thrifty tip: Do you have any herbal teas at home already that you particularly like the scent of? Open some teabags and use them in your bath bombs. This is good for testing small amounts of different ingredients to see what works well.

*There are two sets of bath bombs pictured in this tutorial. The small round ones at the top of the page contain the following things:

Rose: rose petals, rose oil

Coffee Spice: finely ground coffee, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves

Wildflower Mix: calendula, lavender, rose, clover, jasmine oil

The bath bombs pictured below in the tutorial (shaped like dixie cups,) have the following ingredients: citric acid, baking soda, epsom salt, oatmeal, chamomile tea, roses (sold as loose tea at many Asian markets), Greek mountain tea, orange blossom water

Chamomile and Orange Blossom bath bombs molded in a Dixie cup

Okay, onto the directions:

1) Mix the dry ingredients together.

2) Add water, in tiny increments. The easiest way to do this is with a spray bottle. You can also just add it in drips, but it’s harder to control the amount. You want to mix constantly with your hands until you have a wet-beach-sand consistency. If the mixture starts to fizz a lot, you are adding too much water, too quickly. The mix should look like this and stick together if you scoop it up in your hand. (see below)

3) Choose your mold. Anything sturdy and moderately flexible can be used. Craft stores sell molds for this kind of thing, but they’re not necessary unless you want to open up a bath bomb factory in your home. Go through your recycling for good plastic shapes. I used half of a plastic egg from a pair of nylons with success. Small paper cups also work. It’s not the fanciest shape, but it works.

4) Pack the mix into the mold firmly. You want to really compact it.

5) Then tip your mold upside down and put it on a flat surface like a tray or plate. Gently tap the mold or flex it a tiny bit, to loosen the bath bomb. If it falls apart, you need to add more water. If it breaks after adding more liquid, fill the mold again and be more delicate when you loosen it.

6)Leave your bath bombs out to dry overnight. They should be hard in 12-24 hours depending on the humidity.

Have fun! Practice makes perfect…

P.S. One more interesting point. If you add too much liquid to your first batch (like I did,) and the bath bombs begin to expand, this is what will happen: They fizz all over the place, and dry as a massive pancake shaped lump, studded with flowers and smelling like roses…This is still use-able! You can break it up and use it in a bath. It just lacks the fancy shape of its more elegant cousins.

Offering table for the Day of the Dead, 2009, The table contains photos, candles, water, flowers, favorite foods of the deceased, sugar skulls, and other assorted odds and ends. There also ought to be cut paper decorations. I think they didn’t make it into this photo because they were hanging up above.

The Day of the Dead holiday has always interested me. Here are some pertinent tidbits related to the festival…

The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston, All Saints’ Day

Here is a link to my recipe for pan de muertos, the bread of the dead, which is traditionally prepared for the holiday and placed on ofrendas, or offering tables, in honor of deceased loved ones. The bread is delicious, as well as being both fun and easy to make. It can be made with anise-flavored, with the addition of anise seed or anise tea into the dough. The dough is shaped like a pile of bones. The bread is good plain, but it also makes great toast…
I’ve made the bread both with and without anise, and it is good either way. However, the anise is recommended! You can also use te de siete azahares, or seven flower tea, to flavor the dough. The tea  contains a mix of valerian, chamomile, linden, lemon balm, different varieties of mint, and passion flower. I have never made it that way, but it sounds very poetic. I’m sure it would be good too.

Pan de muerto on an ofrenda, Brookline, MA, with decorated sugar skulls, photos, flowers, and sweets

My early attempts at sugar skulls are here.

Finally, here are this year’s sugar skulls. I think they came out very jaunty looking.

Sugar skulls made from a candy mold

Decorating with glittering things

More decor

The finished product!

That’s all for now…

Always wanted to go, and this year I finally did!

Hall’s Pond, Brookline, MA, May 2012

“The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey and the journey itself is home…Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering.”
–Basho, Narrow Road to the Interior, sometimes more poetically translated as Narrow Roads to Far Places

Hall’s Pond, Brookline, May 2012

“One morning Solomon asked a bright green plant,

‘What is your name and do you have a purpose?’

‘I am a carob tree.

Wherever I grow, the building becomes a ruin.

I am a reminder of what comes to everyone.’

Consider this.

You have a choice about what you want,

and you can argue twenty different points of view in intellectual matters,

but with the mysteries of spirit and love,

it’s best to be bewildered.

In an ocean with no edge, what good are swimming skills?”

–Jelaluddin Rumi, Book 4 of the Masnavi

We are the night ocean filled
with glints of light. We are the space
between the fish and the moon,
while we sit here together.

–Rumi (from Quatrains of Rumi, translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks)

Sample of Sudanese style henna. This is a free design. It is not included in the book.

If you’re interested in Sudanese style henna, you might be like my new design book, Lotuses of the Nile, Sudanese Henna Designs.

The 25 page book contains 40 designs for hands and feet. The designs are a mix of bold filled-in floral motifs and smooth, swirling abstract shapes.

Here are two samples from the e-book. It’s for sale for $10 through Artistic Adornment.com. Click on either of the samples below to check it out!

From my reading, I have learned that one of the staples of Ethiopian cooking is a hot spice mix called Berbere. It’s easy to make and promises to add excitement my  to meals in the coming months. Try it!

Ingredients:

Group 1:

• 2 tsp. cumin seeds
• 4 whole cloves
• 3/4 tsp. cardamom seeds
• 1/2 tsp. whole black peppercorns
• 1/4 tsp/ whole allspice
• 1 tsp. fenugreek
• 1/2 tsp. coriander seeds

Group 2:

• approximately 1/5 cp. dried red pepper flakes
• 1/2 tsp. finely minced fresh ginger root

Group 3:

• 1/4 tsp. turmeric
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 1/2 tsp. sweet Hungarian paprika
• 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
  

  Group 3, minus the ginger, which didn’t make it into the photo somehow

Here are the steps:

1. Heat all the spices from Group 1 in a frying pan on medium heat for about 2 minutes. They will produce a wonderful smell. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for five minutes.
2. Crush the spices from Group 2 (minced ginger and red pepper flakes) with a mortar and pestle, or in a spice grinder. Add in the cooled, toasted spices from Group 1. Grind everything finely.
3. Mix the spices from Group 3 with the preceding ingredients. Transfer to a storage container and keep in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to 1 month.

Add it in any recipe that uses a hot spice. Add it to vegetables, beans and lentils, soups and stews…Enjoy!

*This is an adapted recipe from the cookbook, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. It replaces some of the traditional ingredients with spices readily available in the United States. If you can find ajwain and rue berries,  which are usually included, try them out. I’m on the lookout for them myself.

Keep it in the refrigerator!