Melissa Brenneman

I'm almost out of scrap candle, almost out of containers (without getting into the canning jars), and still have 3 pints of lard. But I'm happy so far with the process. These harden about like you'd think they would, harder than lard but softer than most container candles. I'm not weighing the lard and wax anymore, since I don't know what's in the candle scraps anyway, but just eyeballing an approximately half and half mix.

This is my "control" candle, for reference:

Half and half lard and fresh wax, by weight. This one has been burning about 1 hour, and doesn't smoke. I used a few drops of scent to cover the lard smell, but its burn odor is neutral.

The wax I used for the control is Aztec 4625.

The next candle was made with the leftover candle scraps and a little less lard, but I've not lit it yet. It looks fine but I'll have no idea what the wax content is.

I haven't tried it yet, but I see some beeswax/tallow blend candles for sale on Etsy. I will try making some container candles with my old lard and candle scrap, starting with a 50/50 blend, and I'll report back.

I have lard left over from buying a half hog a few years ago, and I'm getting another half hog in a few weeks, so I have to make pantry room for rendering my fresh lard. I think the message here is that I need to step up my dietary consumption of lard.

I have some candle scraps and some old lard. I know I can melt the bits of candles to make more candle, and I know I can make fat candles. But has anyone successfully made candles blending these?

I'm grateful to find others sharing their experience of this. Three years ago I started getting fruit from trees I'd planted over 10 years earlier. The first year there were only enough fruits to eat them raw as they ripened. Last year there were so many, I tried pureeing and freezing, and also cooking. My partner and I were terribly nauseated, and I thought maybe I'd failed to cut out a bad spot or something. This year I have hundreds of fruits. I carefully washed, peeled, pureed, and baked a delightful dessert bread to share with my friends. Out of five of us, only one person was not terribly nauseated by the bread.

Apparently I can enjoy pawpaws ripe, scooping the custard right out with a spoon and directly into my mouth, and in ice cream. I'm so sad about not being able to cook them but I'm giving bags of pawpaws to my buddies and telling them they probably shouldn't cook 'em, either.

I've seen so many helpful contributions in the forum of this site and have joined, at last. I have a small urban yard but I take joy in discovering that there's more I can do with it than I really have time for. Thanks to this community for all the hints through the years.