A Tale of 3 Fizzies

Fizzy #1 (back left): from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts

Fizzy #2 (front): from Martha Stewart Living, December 2008

Fizzy #3 (back right): from The Martha Stewart Show, February 2007

"Are you making cookies?" the boyfriend asked one evening.  A fair question: he was starting to make chocolate peanut butter brownies from the new book Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef.  "No..." I admitted.  Next question: "are you making soap?"  How well he knows me.  

I had made soap on Valentine's Day with glycerin from Majestic Mountain Sage and this time I was using another one of their products: citric acid.  So began Bath Fizzy #1:

Sift 1 3/4 cups baking soda, 1 cup citric acid and 2 cups cornstarch, mix with essential oil, spritz with colored water until crumbly and pack into flexible ice cube trays.  It was a little tough to get the consistency just right, so by the next morning I had these:

Cute, pretty pink, smelled like lovely lavender, but some trouble un-molding them so they weren't the perfect squares I was hoping for.  They still fizzed in water though!

So, into a package they went and off to a friend's house on a lovely Sunday to see her and her husband, French bulldog and new baby.  

Later in the week it was on to espresso brownies and Fizzy #2 with slightly different quantities (1 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup citric acid, 3/4 cup cornstarch) and the addition of a 1/4 cup sugar.

Having done the 1st batch I knew a little more about what to expect, and this recipe seemed to make more sense: the sugar gave the rest of the ingredients something to grip on to and it packed nicely.

I let them dry longer this time and there were still some variations in the un-molding process, but:

there were a few nice, smooth squares!  They were lucky to be in the middle of the tray so the pressure from the surrounding squares kept them together.  Thinking of that, it was time for Fizzy #3 (and bourbon pecan brownies).  You can see Martha's video here: she grinds 1 cup of baking soda together with the essential oil, which really blends the scent into the mixture.  Then 1/2 cup citric acid, 1/4 cup epsom salt (I used sugar again instead) and NO CORNSTARCH and pack into a ball mold.

This mixture needed less water to hold together and it dried hard.  I only had this packaging from a stress ball toy, so it wasn't a real mold that held itself together. 

The two halves stayed together well when I held them with my hands, but eventually I tried using a book:

then just the bag of sugar:

but ultimately some of it squeezed out the sides and expanded, so I let it dry open and then it cracked and rounded a bit.

This was the firmest of all the fizzies, so next time I'll try a mold that stays closed so there will be just one piece, not like this:

In the end, the winner for me is Fizzy #2!

And what to do with the extra?  Bath sugar!

Oh and about all those brownies, didn't miss the gluten at all, they were delicious...