Heritage Hints From Mama: Uses For Waxed Paper
I’m excited to have my Mama with us today! She has a lot of wisdom to share. Be sure and click on some of her other posts at the bottom after you read this one 🙂
Gratefully,
Christy
Hello Everyone!
My name is Janice, better known as Mama. You are welcome to adopt me as your go to Mama and I’ll attempt to answer any of your questions. I will be here to pass on my years of learning by trial and error. Today I thought I would pass on some of the many uses for wax paper.
Now some of you young people may not have a roll of wax paper in your kitchen but I am from a different generation who used it to wrap sandwiches. You see we did not have all sizes of zipper bags: snack size, sandwich size and now even large sizes for storing bedspreads and the like. We used wax paper primarily to wrap sandwiches for our lunches. Over the years, I have found a few different uses for wax paper.
One of my favorite uses is to put it under batters to catch the drips. I use a batter bowl to mix up pancake batter. The bowl has a lip on it so that you can pour the batter into the pan. After you pour the batter, there is always a little that drips from the lip onto the counter. If you wait to wipe it up, it becomes similar to concrete and takes a lot of scrubbing to get it up. Just put a small piece of wax paper on the counter underneath the bowl and you don’t have to worry about the drips. Just wad it up and throw it away when you clean up.
I also slice tomatoes and potatoes over a piece of wax paper and then just gather it up with the peelings still on it and throw it away. It saves having to mess up a bowl or messing up the counter with the peelings (Those thin plastic grocery store bags are good for this as well).
If you are icing a cake, cut three small pieces and slide them underneath the edges. After you finish icing the cake, slowly pull them out and the cake plate will be clean as a whistle. (By the way, who knows how clean a whistle is? I’ve always wondered about that!)
I have another wonderful use of wax paper that saves having to get up on a stool or ladder to clean the tops of your cabinets. If your cabinets do not go all the way to the ceiling, cut a long piece of wax paper to lay on the top of the cabinets. My cabinets are a little narrower than the wax paper. I just cut the length and then fold about an inch under and lay it on top of the cabinets. If you want to display things on top of the cabinets, just set them on top of the wax paper. When you get ready to clean the top of your cabinets, just roll the wax paper up, throw it away and cut another piece to fit. It sure cuts down the time that you would usually spend cleaning the greasy cabinet tops! Ideally, you should probably change the wax paper every three months or so but I promise I will not drop in to see if you want to do it once a year. No one will know but you.
Now, in closing, I’ll leave you with a tip that most of you probably know. I just discovered it last year and it has made a real difference! Most rolls of wax paper, aluminum foil and plastic wrap have a tab on each end of the box that you can push in. It keeps the roll from falling out of the box when you are rolling the product out to cut it. I guess if I had time to read the boxes, I would have known this sooner. Oh well, at least I found out about it before I turned seventy! You see there is a bright side to everything!
Let me know if you have other uses for wax paper or if you discover a time saver for the home. We’re all here to learn together. I’m sure everyone would love a few timesavers and shortcuts.
In the meantime, I need your help. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to write about? I enjoy visiting with y’all but I want to share useful information that you’ll enjoy so your ideas are welcome! Please share them in the comments along with any other great ideas for waxed paper uses. We’d love to hear them!
Take care and remember Mama loves you!
~Mama
You can some read other Heritage Hints From Mama By visiting the links below:
As a child I had a metal round saucer for a sled. They are still sold, but they’re mostly plastic now. I still have my metal (aluminium) one that is over 50 years old! We would rub wax paper over the bottom side of it before sledding and that saucer would *fly* down the snowbanks in the neighborhood. It quickly became one of the neighborhood favorite sledding devices.
Similarly, you can rub wax paper over a dry metal show shovel and the snow will slide off of the shovel better instead of sticking.
Oh my goodness, how fun!!! Thank you for sharing your tips!!
I love wax paper too..use it for cake pans and it’s cheaper than parchment paper:) I just found wax paper bags and I use them for separating chicken breasts, meatloaf slices, waffles, burritos and all those single portions that cook ahead of time and freeze well. The wax paper bags make single servings a breeze if you stack them in a square box or container first.
Easy Peasy is ALWAYS a great idea in the KITCHEN:)
Could you please tell me where to get the wax paper bags. I really miss them.
Love all the uses for wax paper that everyone has shared. In our house we always use it to cover food when warming in the microwave. It was a rule with our family that if you made a mess in the microwave, you had to clean up all those splatters yourself. Our kids are all grown now with families of their own, but it didn’t take long for them to learn that it was much easier to cover your food with wax paper instead of cleaning the microwave!
Another thing I use wax paper for is to put a piece on the counter to lay my egg shells on when mixing a recipe. Less mess to scrunch up the wax paper with the egg shells on and toss the whole thing in the trash. Also works great the same way when cooking eggs on the stove. Keeps all that egg mess in one place and then just throw away the wax paper and all those egg shells at once.
Great ideas Annette!!! Thank you for sharing them with us!!
My husband is on a diet. Everything has to be measured or weighed. I pull out a piece of wax paper, cut it in half, then set it on top of the scale. Save the other half for use later. After measuring, I use the wax paper to move the food to the bowl, or plate, or stove. No mess, no drips. Just throw it away!!
I am messy in the kitchen. I get a bunch of recipes going at the same time and stuff starts flying. A lot of the things you have to measure in the kitchen are expensive – like spices…so I measure over a piece of waxed paper, then lift that wax paper and tip the spillage back into the jar. NO WASTE!
What a great idea Lisa!!!!! Thank you so much for sharing!!
I use wax paper to separate leftover waffles to freeze, and to separate layers of iced Christmas cookies in the cookie tins. When working on a colored pencil drawing, I rest my working hand on a sheet of wax paper; otherwise, my hand smudges the work in progress. Many colored pencils are wax-based, so there’s no incompatibility, and the natural oils of my hand won’t inhibit blending I intentionally want to do. Of course, there’s the old grade school craft of grating old crayon stubs and sprinkling them between wax paper layers, then ironing to melt. Made great ‘stained windows’ for any reason/season.
Can you please tell me how to use wax paper to iron doilies?
I have heard that you can do it and even tried it,but have forgotten
how its done,thanks