Cupcake Bath Fizzies

I can't wait to use one of these cute bath treats for my daughter's bath tonight. I can just hear it now: "Oooooo la-la." That's what she says when she sees fancy things, except it comes out as "Oooooo ya-ya" because she can't pronounce the letter "L" yet. She is so friggin cute. Anyway...

Let me just come out and say it, people. These cupcake bath fizzies a real pain in the ass to make. But they were worth it. What made them a pain in the ass was all the running around I had to do for special ingredients. I don't know about you, but I don't have meringue powder and citric acid just laying around the Nitty Gritty cupboard. The critic acid was the worst thing to find. I thought I could find it at my local health food store, but when I asked I got weird looks like I was asking for bomb making supplies. Jeez. I eventually found it at Duck Soup Coop, our local food co-op, and they didn't think I was weird at all! God love them!

So here's the dirty...I experimented with two different recipes for these bath fizzies. The first recipe I tried was a disaster so I'm not gonna bother telling you where I found it. I found success with Martha Stewart's bath fizzy recipe (isn't she just a goddess?).  I made a few minor tweaks and have detailed the recipe below:

You will need:
1/2 cup of citric acid
1 cup baking soda
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup Epsom salts (Martha's recipe called for organic sugar)
About 6 drops of food coloring (I used blue)
10-15 drops of skin safe essential oils (I used lavender)
Spray bottle
Eye dropper for oils
A mold for the fizzies
Storage jars.

This recipe yielded 10 mini cupcakes and 8 heart-shaped fizzies.

In a large bowl, mix together your baking soda and citric acid powder. I used a whisk. Make sure you break up all the little lumps. Smart people will use a flour sifter. I do not own such fancy equipment, so I just made sure it was mixed well and there were no lumps. Add the Epsom salts and mix together well.

In your spray bottle, add some water and your food coloring. Shake well. Spray your mixture lightly until it becomes damp but not fizzy. If it starts to fizz, back off on the water. Keep mixing it up. Use your hands! That is the best way to know if you are getting the right consistency. You want the mixture to get to the point where you can pack it with your hands. There are no pictures of this step because my hands were full of bath fizzyness. Add your essential oils one drop at a time, until they smell good enough to you.

Pack into your molds and let dry for a few hours.

I used a Wilton heart candy mold and a mini-cupcake mold to make my fizzies. The two pink balls in the foreground are from the first failed recipe. I guess I shouldn't say "failed," the recipe was just very hard to work with and the mixture did not have the smooth texture like Martha's

Here they are after drying a few hours.

Bath fizzy heart:

If you want to stop here, feel free. Do not feel compelled to make the fancy "frosting" for your cupcake molded fizzies. But if you want to achieve maximum cuteness, you should proceed to the next pain in the ass process of making the meringue frosting. (You can lick the beaters!)

Meringue Frosting Recipe:

3 tablespoons of meringue powder (made by Wilton and can be purchased from Michael's)
6 tablespoons warm water
4 cups of sifted powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar
Few drops of fragrance oil - optional (I skipped this step because I forgot to add it)
Few drops of skin safe coloring (I also skipped this step because I wanted white frosting)

Head on down to Michael's and pick up some meringue powder. It costs about 6 bucks and it looks like this:

Whisk the meringue powder with the warm water in a small bowl. In a large bowl, combine your powdered sugar and cream of tartar. Slowly add your meringue and water mixture. With your mixer speed on medium, blend for 7 to 10 minutes until stiff peaks form.

Well, stiff peaks never formed for me because just as all the ingredients got sufficiently combined, my mixer decided to take a dump. (Insert choice words here.) Yep. It broke. Pieces fell out of it onto the counter and I was as pissed as I could be. I had to mix the rest by hand. It turned out ok but I'm definitely asking Santa for a new mixer this year, unless I'm already on his naughty list.

I used my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to make the frosting look as fancy-like on top of the cupcake fizzies. Then to top it off (pun totally intended), I sprinkled the tops with blue sugar.

Voila! Don't you love them? I do, even though they were time consuming to make and my mixer broke. They look good enough to eat.

Here they are, boxed for gift-giving.

I have a few extra-special people in mind for this gift because I know they will appreciate all the hard work I put into making them.