On Baking Bread and Making Soap

Yesterday I made some delicious bread. As I was kneading the dough, I began thinking about how making bread is like making soap. Both actions are very involved. There is a period of making sure one's measurements are precise, and there is a waiting time before one can continue with the process.

With this in mind, I'd like to bring up a statement that soapmakers frequently hear. Some people are skeptical about homemade soap because it is necessary to use lye in order to produce the soap. Lye is a dangerous chemical when mishandled, and the lye solution used to make soap can cause serious chemical burns. I have heard someone say, "I'll take a bar of your soap, but I don't want it to have any lye in it because lye is harsh on my skin"

This is analogous too someone saying, "I'd like to have some homemade bread, but I don't want mine to have salt in it because I don't like salty things." When making bread, it is necessary to use salt because it reacts with the yeast and flour to help the bread rise. The final product should never taste salty, and if it does that means something went wrong in the baking process. You may have added too much salt or used salt that had clumps in it.

Lye works similarly in the soap making process. Lye is necessary for making soap. It reacts with the oils to form soap molecules similarly to salt reacting to yeast in making bread. A chemical change takes place. There should NEVER be any lye left in a bar of soap after this process has taken place because a change has occurred. It is no longer lye; it is soap. In the same way, you should never taste salt in your homemade bread. It is no longer salt; it is bread.

My husband made biscuits once using some old salt that had formed clumps. Rather than break up the clumps or use different salt, he just dumped the clumps into the batter. As I was eating one of his biscuits, I bit into a salt clump. YUCK! He had messed up when making these biscuits.

Although it is not always evident when one messes up a bread recipe, it is evident when one messes up a soap recipe. If a soapmaker messes up when making soap, the lye will not fully react with the oils. Instead it will separate out, and the lye will be visible in the final bars of soap. These bars caustic and unusable. Gather a Lather Soaps will NEVER sell you a bar of soap with lye in it. And all the soapmakers I have encountered also hold to this standard.

We who make soaps in our homes pride ourselves in being able to provide a product that is often superior to homemade soaps. We have high standards for our products, and we want our customers to enjoy them as much as we do. Bakers will work hard to make a delicious bread, one that they are proud to sell and enjoy eating at their own tables. In the same way soapmaers will work hard to create a luscious soap, one that they are proud to sell and enjoy using in their daily lives.