 |
| Wooden Spoon rub |
In my bid to be a little more waste conscious I have come to the conclusion that I really need to start looking after the things I already have.... so I don't need to buy more...... even if I want too :)
One of my little obsessions is wooden utensils, wooden lidded glass jars and crockery. I guess it is reminds me of baking and cooking with my mum as a kid. I was so pleased when, at 18, I left home that my mum donated a couple of her wooden spoons to me...... and was so sad when one cracked a few years ago after being left it in a boiling pan of soup.
I now buy wooden spoons, bowls and plates when ever I come across them in charity shops...... which sadly happens less frequently than I like these days.
So........to protect them I have been meaning to buy some wax for a little while......but decided last week to look up a recipe and to my great delight found that I not only already had all the ingredients required, but it is unbelievably easy to make!!!
After I posted the above picture on Instagram I got a few asks for the receipe so thought I would share it on here..... As it wasn't a planned post I haven't taken any great pictures or indeed any of the making process but it is so easy you won't need them anyway :)
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons Beeswax (try and get the creamy coloured pellets not white as they haven't been beached)
6 tablespoons Coconut oil or Walnut oil (not olive as can go rancid quickly)
Instructions
Over a medium heat, in a double boiler, melt the beeswax and oil together, stirring occasionally. Once mixed together and runny pour into a glass jar and wait for it to set
Once your wax/ rub has set use a lint free cloth (I actually used my fingers) to rub a generous amount into your wooden beauties. Leave overnight ( or 4 hours if inpatient like me) and then using a lint free cloth buff :)
Below is a little photo of one of my favourite wooden charity shop finds, a wooden fruit bowl, that shows the before (left) and after (right).... it actually looks a lot more noticeable in 'real life'. It has really brought out the grain out and enhanced the warm red tone of the wood.
What a swell bowl! Love the carving. I too love wooden utensils and have them stuck in a clay beer stein that I obtained with my half-German husband. They look great together on my counter (the stein and wooden utensils, that is).
ReplyDeleteI carve and wooden utensils, and though walnut and coconut oil work great, I use flaxseed oil (with a flaxseed oil/beeswax rub on the last round of curing to make them look nice). When it comes to cures for wood, there are both dry cures and wet cures; dry (Flaxseed oil is the only dry cure that is food safe) will fill in all the porous gaps in the wood and dry there, making the wood unable to absorb things like food and water, which will wear down a spoon (making the time between treating them much longer), and there are wet cures (like coconut, olive oil, walnut, etc) that are more fleeting, and will not fill in and dry, but rather temporarily moisturize the wood.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you see pure/raw linseed oil at a hardware store, it is just flaxseed oil that hasn't been graded for eating in, say, smoothies, but is perfectly good to cure your cutting boards and utensils with! But stay away from Boiled linseed, which has toxic heavy metals added to it to speed up drying time.
Ha, this comment is a bit long, but I have followed your blog for years and was so happy to see a post about wooden spoons (my obsession)! My Instagram for my stuff is RosewaterSpoonworks, if you're ever looking for new spoons or anything custom carved!
Thanks for this, it was really helpful.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful carving!
ReplyDelete