HOW TO MAKE HONEYFOAM

INSPIRATION

The honeyfoam recipe is based on Margaret Dunne’s gelatin foam recipe from her Bioplastic Cook Book. Her recipe is made from 60g glycerin, 60ml water, 45ml gelatin and 6ml soap. The different qualities of this recipe and the honeyfoam is the thickness and strength of the material. The gelatin foam is a lot less strong and thick than the honeyfoam. This makes it tear easier when sharp objects are pressed against it, but it can also tear easily when pressing on it too hard. The material bounces back a lot more when pressed on it and the surface has a lot of air holes from bubbles. There is also one different tool used in the hoenyfoam recipe. I noticed when i first started to make foam recipes that the bottom half of the foam will often be solid while the top half is foam. The foam is too heavy and presses the lower half together making all the air disappear, which makes it a solid form. To prevent this I tried to speed up the cooling proces by storing the freshly casted foam in the freezer. This way the foam has no time to press the air out of the bottom half because it’s already become hard.

HOW TO MAKE HONEYFOAM

TUTORIAL

Method

Mix the gelatine and water together and let it swell for a few minutes, and do the same to the honey and glycerine. Mix both mixtures together and heat it until the glyxerine has fully disolved. Add the soap to the mix and use a mixer for a few minutes. The mix is done when it starts to stick to the hooks of the mixer. Cast the mixture into a mold or glass plate and let it cool down in the freezer. Note that once the material has been mixed, it can be heated again without losing any ‘foamness’ and be recasted.

Tools

The necessary tools for making bioplastic are a pot, spoon or fork, a stove, a mixer, a measuring cup and a mold or glass/acrylic plate.

Ingredients

The needed ingredients are 100ml gelatin, 100ml glycerin, 50ml honey, 50ml water and +/- 5ml soap.

Optional

Honey does mold after a period of time, to prevent this add +/- 5ml of an antibacterial to the mix.

COST

It costs around 10 euros to make one liter of honeyfoam. The recipe uses relatively much glycerin which makes it the most expensive ingredient of them all.