35 Surprising uses for tin foil – and not just in the kitchen

Readers Digest.com suggests these interesting uses for tin foil:

A perfect pie crust

Keep the edges of homemade pies from burning – cover them with strips of aluminium foil. The foil prevents the edges from getting overdone while the rest of your pie gets perfectly browned.

Create any-shaped cake pans

Make a teddy bear birthday cake, a Valentine’s Day heart cake, a Christmas tree cake or whatever shaped cake the occasion call for. Just form a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminium foil into the desired shape inside a large cake pan.

 

Soften brown sugar

To restore hardened brown sugar to its former powdery glory, chip off a piece, wrap it in aluminium foil and bake it in the oven at 150° C for five minutes.

Decorate a cake

No pastry bag handy? No problem. Form a piece of heavy-duty aluminium foil into a tube and fill it with icing.

Bonus: There’s no pastry bag to clean — simply throw out the foil tube when you’re done.

 Keep rolls and breads warm

Lock in the oven-fresh warmth of your homemade rolls or breads. Wrap freshly baked goods in a napkin and place a layer of aluminium foil underneath. The foil will reflect the heat and keep your bread warm for quite some time.

 Catch ice-cream drips

Keep little ones from making a mess of their clothes or the house by wrapping the bottom of an ice-cream cone (or juicy fruit like watermelon) with a piece of aluminium foil before handing it to them.

Polish silver

If your silverware is looking a bit dull, try an ion exchange – the molecular reaction in which aluminium acts as a catalyst. All you have to do is line a pan with a sheet of aluminium foil, fill it with cold water and add two teaspoons of salt. Place tarnished silverware into the solution and let it sit for two to three minutes, then rinse and dry.

 

Keep silverware untarnished

Store freshly cleaned silverware on top of a sheet of aluminium foil to deter tarnishing. For long-term storage of silverware, first tightly cover each piece in cellophane wrap (be sure to squeeze out as much air as possible) then wrap in foil and seal the ends.

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 Preserve steelwool pads

It’s annoying that after using a steelwool pad once and putting it in a dish by the sink, the next day you find a rusty mess fit for the bin. To prevent rust and get your money’s worth from steelwool, wrap it in foil and place it in the freezer. You can also lengthen the life of steelwool soap pads by crumpling up a sheet of foil and placing it under the steel wool in its dish or container. Don’t forget to periodically drain off the water that collects at the bottom.

 Scrub pots

Crumple up a handful of aluminium foil and use it to scrub your pots if you do not have a pot scourer handy.

 Keep the oven clean

Keep messy drips off the bottom of the oven by laying a sheet or two of aluminium foil over the rack below.

Do not line the bottom of the oven with foil – it could cause a fire.

Hide worn spots on mirrors

Sometimes a worn spot adds to the charm of an old mirror, but sometimes it’s just ugly. Easily disguise small flaws on a mirror’s reflective surface by putting a piece of aluminium foil, shiny side facing out, on the back of the glass. To hold the foil in place, attach it to the backing behind the mirror or to the frame with masking tape. Don’t tape it to the mirror itself.

 Sharpen scissors

What can you do with those clean pieces of leftover foil you have hanging around? Use them to sharpen up dull scissors! Smooth out foil, fold into several layers and start cutting. Seven or eight passes should do the trick.

Clean jewellery

To clean jewellery, line a small bowl with aluminium foil, fill with hot water and mix in one tablespoon of powdered laundry detergent (not liquid). Place jewellery in the solution and let it soak for a minute. Rinse well and air-dry. This procedure makes use of the chemical process known as ion exchange, which can also be used to clean silverware.

Move furniture with ease

To slide big pieces of furniture over a smooth floor, place small pieces of aluminium foil under the legs. Put the dull side of the foil down, which is actually more slippery than the shiny side.

 Fix loose batteries

Is your flashlight or child’s toy working intermittently? Check the battery compartment. Those little prongs that hold batteries in place can lose their tension after a while, leaving the batteries loose. Fold a small piece of foil into a pad that’s thick enough to take up the slack and place it between the battery and the spring.

 Don’t dye your specs

You want to do something that requires wearing glasses while colouring your hair, but if you put them on, they will stain. Solution: Wrap the temples of your glasses with aluminium foil.

Clean out your fireplace or braai

Need an easy way to clean the ashes out of a fireplace or braai? Place a double layer of heavy duty aluminium foil across the bottom of the fireplace, under the grate or at the bottom of the braai before you load the coals and the next day when all the ashes have cooled, simply fold it up and throw it away.

Put some bite in your mulch

To keep hungry insects and slugs away from your cucumbers and other vegetables, mix strips of aluminium foil in with your garden mulch.

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Create a sun box for plants

A sunny window is a great place for keeping plants that love a lot of light. However, since the light always comes from the same direction, plants tend to bend toward it. To bathe your plants in light from all sides, make a sun box: Remove the top and one side from a cardboard box and line the other three sides and bottom with aluminium foil, shiny side out, taping or gluing it in place. Place plants in the box and set it near a window. Plants aren’t the only ones that need sunlight.

 Build a seed incubator

To give plants grown from seeds a healthy head start, line a shoe box with aluminium foil, shiny side up, allowing about two inches of foil to extend out over the sides. Poke several drainage holes in the bottom (penetrating the foil), fill the box slightly more than halfway with potting soil and plant the seeds. The foil inside the box will absorb heat to keep the seeds warm as they germinate, while the foil outside the box will reflect light onto the young sprouts. Place the box near a sunny window and keep the soil moist.

Grow untangled cuttings

Help plant cuttings grow strong and uncluttered by starting them in a container covered with a sheet of aluminium foil. Simply poke a few holes in the foil and insert the cuttings through the holes. There’s even an added bonus: The foil slows water evaporation, so you’ll need to add water less frequently.

 

Make a braai drip pan

To keep meat drippings off your braai coals, make a disposable drip pan out of a couple of layers of heavy-duty aluminium foil. Shape it freehand or use an inverted baking pan as a mould (remember to remove the pan once your creation is finished). Also, don’t forget to make your drip pan slightly larger than the meat on the grill.

 Clean your braai grill

After the last steak is brought in, and while the coals are still red-hot, lay a sheet of aluminium foil over the grill to burn off any remaining foodstuff. The next time you use your braai, crumple up the foil and use it to easily scrub off the burned food before you start cooking.

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Improve outdoor lighting

Brighten up the electrical lighting in your backyard or campsite by making a foil reflector to put behind the light. Attach the reflector to the fixture with a few strips of electrical tape or duct tape — do not apply tape directly to the bulb.

 Make a funnel

Can’t find a funnel? Double up a length of heavy duty aluminium foil and roll it into the shape of a cone. This DIY funnel has an advantage — you can bend it to reach awkward holes.

Make an artist’s palette

Tear off a length of heavy duty aluminium foil, crimp up the edges, and you’ve got a ready-to-use palette for mixing paints. If you want to get a little fancier, cut a piece of cardboard into the shape of a palette, complete with thumb hole, and cover it with foil. Or if you already have a wooden palette, cover it with foil before each use and then just strip off the foil instead of cleaning the palette.

Prevent paint from forming a skin

When opening a half-used can of paint, you’ll find a skin of dried paint on top. Not only is it annoying to remove, but dried bits wind up in the paint. Prevent this with a two-pronged attack when you close a used paint can. First, put a piece of aluminium foil under the can and trace around it. Cut out the circle and drop the foil disk onto the paint surface. Then take a deep breath, blow into the can and quickly reseal the top. The carbon dioxide in human breath replaces some of the oxygen in the can and helps prevent the paint from drying.

Line roller pans

Cleaning out paint roller pans is a pain, which is why a lot of folks buy disposable plastic pans or liners. But lining a metal roller pan with aluminium foil works just as well — and can be a lot cheaper.

Keep paint off doorknobs

When painting a door, aluminium foil is great for wrapping doorknobs to keep paint off them. Overlap the foil onto the door when you wrap the knob, then run a sharp utility knife around the base of the knob to trim the foil. That way you can paint right up to the edge of the knob. In addition to wrapping knobs on the doors that you’ll paint, wrap all the doorknobs that are along the route to where you will clean your hands and brushes.

 Keep a paintbrush wet

If you are going to continue painting the next day or later, don’t bother cleaning the brush — just squeeze out the excess paint and wrap the brush tightly in aluminium foil (or plastic wrap). Use an elastic band to hold the foil tightly at the base of the handle. For extended wet-brush storage, place the wrapped brush in the freezer. But don’t forget to defrost the brush for an hour or so before you paint.

 

Shine your chrome

For sparkling chrome on appliances, golf club shafts and older car bumpers, crumple up a handful of aluminium foil with the shiny side out and apply some elbow grease. If you rub real hard, the foil will even remove rust spots.

Note: Most ‘chrome’ on new cars is actually plastic, so don’t rub it with aluminium foil.

 Three uses for foil in the laundry

1) Speed up ironing

When ironing clothing, a lot of the iron’s heat is sucked up by the board, requiring you to make several passes to remove wrinkles. Speed things up by putting a piece of aluminium foil under the ironing board cover. The foil will reflect the heat back through the clothing, smoothing wrinkles quicker.

2) Attaching a patch

An iron-on patch is an easy way to fix small holes in clothing, but only if it doesn’t get stuck on the ironing board. Put a piece of aluminium foil under the hole – it won’t stick to the patch and you can just remove it when you’re done.

 3) Clean your iron

Is starch building up on your clothes iron and causing it to stick? To get rid of it, run your hot iron over a piece of aluminium foil.

Source: Reader’s Digest – www.rd.com

 

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