Make your own beeswax food wraps

Yes, I know. Beeswax wraps are ALL over Pinterest and everyone claims they’re super easy to make and they’re saving the world. Guess what?! They really are.

You’ll need:

• 1. Pieces of 100% cotton fabric (whatever size wraps you’d like to make)

  100% Beeswax (If you have a block, you’ll have to grate it, pellets are easier. Find it on eBay. It’s about $5 for 100g, which gives you about 4 30x30cm wraps)

  Baking paper

  Iron

Cut your material to size and place on a sheet of baking paper. Make sure you have about 10cm extra baking paper around the sides of your fabric. This will make sure any liquid wax doesn’t end up all over your bench when you start ironing. Grate your wax block or open your packet of wax pallets. Sprinkle your wax over the material evenly. You really don’t need a lot and you can always add more after if you see not all the fabric has been covered.

Put your iron on its cotton setting and turn off the steam. Place another sheet of baking paper (about the same size as your bottom sheet) on top of your wax covered fabric. Iron evenly for about 1 minute or until you see the wax melting. Look carefully through your baking paper and make sure all the fabric looks like it has been covered by the wax. It should look like it’s wet. If it looks like you missed some bits, lift up your baking paper and add a bit more wax to those areas and iron again.

Remove your top sheet of baking paper and pull the fabric from the bottom sheet. With your fingertips, hold your fabric for a minute or 2 until it dries.

You can trim the edges with pinking shears if you like, to prevent fraying but I didn’t bother. I haven’t had a problem with fraying at all. I did trim some of the edges with regular scissors, just to tidy up some loose threads.

And that’s it. You’ll find that some recipes suggest you add pine oil. Apparently, this is what makes the wraps sticky or clingy. I didn’t add this for a few reasons; firstly, I couldn’t be bothered buying it and secondly, I could imagine the stickiness feeling a bit yuck and collecting yucky things like crumbs and the like! I use a rubber band to secure the wraps and that works perfectly.

The fab thing about these wraps, is they’re so easy to make AND use. Plus, beeswax is naturally anti-bacterial which is great news when you’re dealing with food storage. Another great idea to preserve the food are the vending machines, you can get a range of vending machines in Gold Coast, contact Royal Vending for your vending machine needs.  They are supposed to last about 6 months at which point you can pop them under the iron again and renew them!

If you’ve been thinking about buying these, you might want to consider making them. They’re pretty expensive to buy and they truly are soooo easy to make.