Espresso Martini Candle

I've recently been experimenting with candlemaking, and came across an espresso martini fragrance oil. Since it's my favourite cocktail, it seemed an obvious choice!

Note: I don't recommend using a martini glass to make candles in: the glass would likely shatter. Stick to thicker, heat resistant glass even if it means compromising a bit on the aesthetic.

• candle wax: I used Cocopro container wax
• candle dye: I used liquid dyes in brown, black, and a tiny bit of yellow
• wick suitable for the width of jar
• wick sticker or glue dot
• old jam jar or other sturdy clear glass jar
• rubbing alcohol
• wick centring device
• double boiler
• coffee bean mould

Rinse out your jam jar and peel the label off. I had to do a bit of scrubbing with an old scouring pad to get the last of the glue off.

One way to calculate how much wax you need is by weighing the same volume of water. I put the jar on my scales, tared, and weighed out the amount of water that came up to where I wanted the 'coffee' part of the wax to reach.

You want to multiply that weight by around .86. So I had 190g water, which converted to 163.4g wax. But since I was also adding fragrance, at 10% (check your brand of wax for its fragrance load: this is how much fragrance oil you can safely add), I then multiplied that number by .9 to get the wax weight, and .1 to get the fragrance weight. I ended up with about 147g wax, and 16g fragrance oil.

I went ahead and weighed out the wax, and set it over the water pan on a low heat. While that was starting to melt, I also weighed out the fragrance oil into a glass container, wiped down the inside of the jar with rubbing alcohol, and stuck the wick to the centre bottom of the jar using a wick sticker (you can also use glue dots or wax for this).

Once all the wax was melted I started adding some colour. The colour of solid wax is going to be lighter than when it's liquid, so you'll need more than you think! I added a mix of brown and black dye, stirring it in, and testing it on a piece of kitchen towel. I put the piece of kitchen towel in the fridge so the little blobs of wax would set quickly, and I could judge the final colour.

Before adding the fragrance, I scooped out a little of the coffee coloured wax into my bean mould. I did this before adding fragrance so I could keep some beans for different coffee scented candles (not that I binge bought a range of coffee-scented fragrance oils one night. Nope). After doing that, I stirred the fragrance oil into the main pot.

I then poured the wax into my jam jar, and used the wick centring tool to keep the wick straight. I decided to try letting the candle cool in a hot water bath, as I'd previously had issues with candles looking patchily stuck to the glass. I haven't decided if this method consistently works yet, but I did get better results with this candle. I left the candle to set for a few days as I had some other stuff to do, but overnight should do fine otherwise.

Some time later, I started on making the 'foam' part of the candle. For this I more guesstimated how much wax I would need, based on what proportion of the jar I still wanted to fill. I ended up with about 40g of wax, and 4.5g fragrance oil. I repeated the melting and mixing step, but only added a little bit of yellow colour (I deliberately left the 'coffee' wax residue in the pot, so that it would slightly colour the 'foam' wax).

Once the wax was melted, coloured and fragranced, I poured about a 4mm layer into the candle. I let that sit for ten minutes, and demoulded three coffee beans. I then pushed the three beans slightly into the half-set wax, and then poured the remaining wax onto the opposite side of the candle to make it look like the beans were floating within the foam layer.

Once everything was solid again, I trimmed the wick, and left it to cure with the lid on. The fragrance should work best if you leave your candle to cure for a week or two before lighting.