Heritage Hints From Mama: Uses For Waxed Paper
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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:
I enjoyed all the wax paper tricks. I keep a piece when I measure flour into a cup. The extra flour (or whatever) can be poured back into the canister. I put some on the cabinet to put cookies on to cool when I am baking cookies. Also good to iron over a piece of waxed paper to keep your iron from sticking. Have used a lot in my craft room also.
Thank you for sharing with us. I am going to fix my boxes now. Thank you for the tip. God bless you!
This really brought back memories. My Dad would always take the wax paper out of the cereal boxes and save it too. My mother used to save the paper the butter was wrapped in and use it to grease her cake pans. I still do that sometimes.
I need to know how to clean painted cabinets, the greasy feel . thank you for your ideas.
Thank you for the tips!! I use wax paper when I am making homemade burgers. I lay a sheet of it on the counter and form my patties on it. That way I can just throw that away and not have to dirty up a plate. I also use it to put between layers of cookies/brownies when I am store them in my tupperware.
I use wax paper for a lot of things, but mostly I use it to roll out biscuit dough. I dampen the counter and spread the paper on counter, sprinkle with flour, put dough on and roll away.
I totally enjoyed the post today. I use wax paper on top of my cooling racks to dump a batch of Christy’s caramel puff corn on when I make it. It cools right real fast so I can eat it without burning my mouth (I’ve already burned it enough while baking by snitching bites from the oven). I also line cabinets and drawers with it as it is cheaper than anything else. When I was a little girl in West Virginia we only had the old galvanized metal trash cans with the lid handle on the edge of the lid not the top. Momma would wax the top of the can so the lid would come off easier. Now us kids we used that good ol’ wax paper to wax the top of the lid right real good they made a wonderful sled to slid over the hill on in the winter. Those lids would fly and go faster than any store bought fancy sled. Such wonderful memories. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. As folks used to say about themselves I am old school and always keep a couple rolls of wax paper. I also cut squares to wrap homemade caramels, taffy, fudge, marshmallows well really any type of homemade candy. So much cheaper than wrappers you buy and even makes it feel more homemade.
I don’t have any tips but this brought back memories of my mom. She brought a cheese sandwich to work for lunch everyday and it was always wrapped in wax paper. She always had me take a bite of it before she wrapped it to “taste test” it. Thanks for bringing back
memories of my mom. 🙂