How to make beeswax food wraps - the iron method
The beauty of starting with our wax blend blocks, is that there is no measuring, pre-melting and mixing of ingredients needed, so no math, and no aftermath of scrubbing pots and pans!
With a block of Dee's Bees Food Wrap Blend and an iron, the only cleanup you'll have at the end is to throw away a couple of pieces of baking paper - or keep them for re-use if you plan to make more wraps in future.
You need:
- 1 Dee’s Bees Food Wrap Blend Block
- Cotton fabric of your choice, light-medium weight. (Synthetic blends do not take up the wax well)
- Vegetable peeler or cheese grater (the peeler is safer and easier to clean)
- Baking paper (any old baking paper from the supermarket)
- Iron
- A firm, heatproof surface to work on (I use a piece of plywood sat on my ironing board - the ply is not essential, but helpful if you're making lots of wraps as I do)
Method:
| 1. | If your fabric is new, run it through your washing machine to remove dressing, and dry thoroughly. | |
| 2. | Cut your fabric to your preferred size and shape... anywhere from a 15 cm circle to cover a jar top, to a 50x50 square to wrap a large loaf of bread. Use pinking shears if you have them: the zig-zag edge helps to prevent fraying, but this isn’t essential as the wax blend will hold the fabric edge quite well on its own. | |
| 3. | Lay a sheet of baking paper on your work surface and your fabric on top. Make sure you have a couple of inches of baking paper outside the edge of the fabric to catch any wax run-off. You can overlap pieces of baking paper to cover a larger area if needed. |  |
| 4. | Use the vege peeler, grater, or small knife to shave the Wrap Block onto the fabric. You won't need a lot, and it's easy to add more if needed, so don't get too carried away. |  |
| 5. | Lay another sheet of baking paper on top of the fabric, again, making sure you have a good margin covered outside the fabric. The baking paper protects your work surface and iron from wax runoff, so make sure you have a bit of space covered around the edge of the fabric - use more than one sheet of baking paper overlapped if you need to. |  |
| 6. | With your iron set to a medium heat (beeswax only needs about 62 degrees celsius to melt - you can turn the iron up if you feel it's not melting easily enough), and on a dry setting (no steam), gently iron your wrap. You will see the baking paper becoming translucent where the wax melts into the fabric. Slow firm movements with your iron will help to spread the wax. |  |
| 7. | Lift the top sheet of baking paper to check your progress. It's easy to see where not enough wax has been used. |  |
| 8. | Add a few more wax shavings to areas that need a top-up, cover with the top baking sheet again (making sure you keep the wax-free side to the iron), and re-iron. |
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| 9. |
Looking good. The baking paper is translucent right across the wrap fabric, and out to all the edges.
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| 10. |
Lift the baking paper, and quickly lift your wrap by the corners before it cools to stop it sticking to the baking paper. Don't worry if it does stick - just cover up with baking paper again, run your iron over to warm the wax, and lift away while still warm. Think you've used too much wax? Easy - just add another piece of fabric, and iron the two together - the new fabric will take up the extra wax. |
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| 11. |
The wax will cool almost instantly when you pick up the wrap, so I just wave it about for a couple of seconds, and then lay it aside and carry on with the next one, but you can choose to hang on a clothes rack to set if you wish. You can carry on using the same baking paper many times, and leftover wax from the previous wrap will just be taken up by the next piece of fabric. One final note - some baking papers, depending on the heat of your iron, may leave a bit of waxy residue on your iron, which of course you don't want to end up on the next clothing item you iron. Clean your iron while it is still warm and the residue soft by ironing a piece of scrap fabric or an old towel, and turning your steam setting to full while ironing to make sure you clear the steam vents of any residue. |
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Easy, huh?
