HOW TO MAKE BEESWAX WRAPS
I’ve been having a bit of fun in the Mother Hubbard’s kitchen of late, trying out all sorts of new things, experimenting with making my own shampoo and conditioner as well as moisturisers and hand wash. You see I’m trying to do my bit for the environment as I think that everything little bit helps and we use so much plastic.
I take my own fruit and veggie bags to my local markets or fruit and vegetable grocer, collect all my soft plastics to send back to woolies and coles for all the extra plastic I have to endure. Having a composting bin for all of my food scraps helps with bring my garbage down, but is also great for the garden. Putting left overs and other foodstuffs into my glass containers is something I have been doing for a while and I use aluminium BBQ containers with lids for most of my freezer foods, I’m not perfect and I still seem to gather a lots of plastic waste, but I’m trying my best to reduce that as much as I can. The last bastion for me was cling wrap or glad wrap as we call it here in Australia.
This Australian Website (candlemaking.com.au) has the cheapest beeswax at $30kg for the pellet form.
If I just want to put something in the fridge in a bowl or on a plate it needs to be wrapped or otherwise it will dry out, so here lies my problem. The Beeswax wraps are pretty expensive to buy, so I thought I would have a go at making them myself. I already had a 1kg block of beeswax, that I found at a garage sale for $5 (which I know is really cheap) and a friend of mine does to quilt, so we got together and had some fun.
A little beeswax goes a long way, but the larger your piece of material the more you use and also the more difficult it is to get the wax melted evenly, but with patience and care you will have your wax wraps in no time at all.
Click here is short YouTube video which helps show you the ironing process.
Ingredients
150g beeswax (pellets or block)
approximately 6 x 30cm x 30cm cotton pieces (washed and ironed flat)
baking paper
old towel
Before you start, grate 150g of beeswax or add 150g to a THERMOMIX and blend 5-10seconds/speed 8, or until it resemble grated parmesan cheese. Immediately remove from the Thermomix to another container, clean thermomix with boiling hot water or make my creamy hand wash (recipe to come) so you don’t waste any beeswax.
Method
1. Place your towel on the ironing board to give it a bit of extra protection incase the wax melts out of the paper
2. Cut a piece of baking paper approximately 10 cm bigger than the size of your clean cotton material piece and place on the towel. (you will need the extra around the edge as the wax melts it spreads, don’t worry it is reusable)
3. Place your material piece on top of the the baking paper.
4. Sprinkle the grated beeswax over the material so it is evenly distributed (don’t stress too much as you can always go back over it if you miss some)
5. Gently place 2 (you really need two or the wax will some through the top layer) and slowly iron over the paper with a hot iron. (see YouTube clip link above)
6. Allow the wax to almost dry (only take about 1 minute) then gentle peel back the top two layers of baking paper to see if there are any holes where wax has not covered the material.
7. Place some extra wax in the holes or use the wax that has gone over the edge of the material on to the paper to fill the holes. Repeat step 5 – 7 until you are happy with the result, then place on a cooling rack to cool and repeat the whole process with your next piece of material.
8. Once the first wrap is finished peel back the paper and reuse for another wrap, I made approximately 6 wraps 30cm x30cm with the 150g of bees wax using only two whole lots of baking paper.
9. The next day, use as you would cling wrap, with they get a bit of food on them wipe down with a damp cloth then leave to dry before folding and putting away for next use.
Below are two extra large wraps I made to cover my large salad bowls, its so much easy now to cover them rather than use 7 strips of plastic!
I hope you have a go at making these lovely wraps that help the environment by saving on plastic.
Enjoy Irresponsibly!
Liz xx
Liz xx
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