An Embarrassingly easy way to clean silver

As I’ve been in manic decluttering frenzy the past several months, I’m happening upon a whole lot of possessions I didn’t know I possessed. One of those items was a box full of silver spoons (as in real silver). I believe I inherited them from my Grandma Peggy, but I can’t be certain of that.

The spoons were pretty badly tarnished and I was debating as to whether to give them away to someone or clean them and use them, since Dave and I together seem to go through all of our spoons each and every day. That and mugs. You would think we’d be mature enough to rinse and reuse those sorts of things, but no. The Duke and Duchess Woodward must have spanking new cups and spoons throughout the day, apparently.

So it wouldn’t hurt to have a few more spoons. Thus began my search for a painless way to remove all that tarnish. I found a way, and it’s so easy it’s actually a little bit ridiculous.

Since I only had those dozen or so spoons and not a whole bin full of silver items, I just used a square 8×8 Pyrex dish. You can adjust for whoever you’ve got going on. You want to line the container with foil, shiny side up. (It does matter).

From there, just lay your items on the foil, sprinkle with baking soda (1 tablespoon to every one cup of boiling water you’ll need) and pour the boiling water over. Do that carefully, as the concoction will bubble a bit. After that, let the items soak for about ten minutes; rinse and dry.

I was impressed! The spoon I kept out for a comparison was, of course, the spoon that still held on to some tarnish, but for the most part, the spoons cleaned up very nicely. I saw several recipes that included 1 tablespoons of salt and 1/2 cup vinegar to the ingredients above. My goal, though, was to find the most basic of recipes that would still do the work, because why complicate things? But if I do try with the other ingredients and the results are astonishing, I’ll be sure to come back and tell you.