Out of love with silicon for baking

hullo maki!

i agree with your assessment of silicon muffin pans. unlike the metal ones, you can't make popovers or yorkshire puddings, but they're not bad at all for muffins or cupcakes.

with regards to the silicon sheets, i also have encountered its greasy feel after i wash it once. however, it usually goes away after i wash it with soap and water for a second time. i have used my silicon sheet many times and i think it's very useful to keep baked goods from sticking. i have made cookies and pretzels on it and it works very well. my silicon sheet is from silpat. do you think the one you bought might have been defective?

I've only used the cake tins and muffin pans, but so far I haven't been overly impressed. I miss the crispy bottoms and they're just not that much easier to clean. I'd rather spend 2 minutes greasing the pan or use paper pans.

you can run those silicone mats through the dishwasher...no need to toss 'em!

I just bought a snowman cake pan and it had no directions at all! I wondered if I'm supposed to grease and oil the pan like a regular cake pan. I tried it out for the first time last night. The cake was a little brown and crispy on the bottom, but it looked cool because the face details (carrot nose and pieces of coal for eyes and mouth) really stood out.

I've made my first cupcakes with silicon muffin tins but most of the cup cake stayed in the tin. It was impossible to get the whole cupcake out in one piece. Isn't it supposed to be non stick? Am I doing something wrong?

I am finding that the silicone bakeware seems to always get hotter and cook faster than the regular times in metal cookware -- and I'm baking everything on a lower temperature to begin with -- I find I have to really watch things closely or they burn.

I didn't like them from the very beginning. They burnt my earl grey tea muffin because things cook faster in them (I didn't know what to expect), not to mention that some bits of muffin got stuck in the grooves and are impossible to remove. They are okay as little side dish dividers in lunch box.

I haven't used silicon yet. I have a six-cup muffin tray that someone gave me but I don't know what the benefits (and pitfalls) of using silicon are. I'm thinking of sticking to my usual tins, unless I can be convinced otherwise. Apart from possibly allowing more even heating, and non-sticking, what are the other perceived benefits?

I couldn't agree more. Silicon muffin cups produce drier muffins without a nice crust, and are a pain to clean; and I much prefer parchment to silpat sheets. The baking sheet liners do seem to get incurably greasy. (Add that to two large, long-haired dogs, and ... well, you get the picture.) BUT -- I'm not dumping my silicone yet, because it is GREAT for some other things.

1. I use my silicone muffin cups as dividers in my bento lunches. Perfect.

2. The smooth-sided muffin cups are wonderful portable, unbreakable individual custard cups for my older son's yearly pumpkin custard birthday treats (his birthday is right around American Thanksgiving, and for some reason he has always preferred to have custard in class instead of the usual cupcakes).

3. Muffin cups great as prep dishes when I'm cooking Indian or Chinese (or anything else that requires mise-en-place).

4. The baking sheet liners, cut down to fit in cake pans, make a super-easy alternative to parchment when baking multi-layer cakes.

We purchased silicon cupcake cups that have the little pleats like the paper and metal ones. They are impossible to clean AND if not throughly cleaned go rancid. Can't cook anything in them because of the smell.We didn't butter them, it was the oils in the muffin mix.I was on here hoping someone had devised a way to clean the oils out. Scrubbing with dishsoap hasn't worked and is, in general, annoying.
However, we do enjoy our Silpat

It seems that some silicon bakeware gives off a very strong odor, somewhat smelling like soap, perfume or something of the like. I have a silicone muffin pan; I use cupcake liners whenever baking cupcakes and my cupcakes come out tasting with that odor! Anyone knows the reason for this?

Silpats are great. Used them in a professional kitchen for about 4 1/2 years, they do get a greasy feeling to it, and with time, they do not smell very good after each use.

I was given a set of 6 silicon cakeware (round, square, loaf, 2x6 Muffin, quiche). And my intial excitement soon faded. The instructions said that I didn't need to grease them, but my brownies stuck to the bottom, just like if I hadn't greased a metal tin. Then no matter how much I washed them, they all developed this white stuff. The set cost over $250, so it is a pretty good brand. Down with silicon. I'm back to my aluminium tins with their nice even cooking.

I have had a Silpat mat for a few years and use it 3-4 times a week. It hasn't got a greasy feel to it. And I would be lost with out it. Maybe you could try http://www.magiccookingsheet.com.au. I know a few people who use this and love it.

It's funny, but I got a silicone muffin pan once which had directions that if you spray it with nonstick spray, then the pan will be nonstick. But that just sounds useless, because isn't any bakeware nonstick once it gets sprayed? Just found it funny.

--

my baking world

Maybe someone can help me? I have used my silicon cookie sheets twice and every time I use them my smoke detector goes off and I am not burning any thing in my gas oven. My gas oven is clean to begin with.. My cookies come out ok and aren't burned either. My husband thinks the silicon sheets smoke and give off an odor. I have removed the sheets from the oven and cooled the cookies, but the smell is still in the house causing the alarms to keep going off. Perhaps these sheets should not be used in a gas oven. Please help!!!!!

Solution for the grease coating: using elbow grease, rub a clean paper towel on the silpat. This transfers the coating from the silpat to the paper.

My experience: Have regularly used silpat muffin "tin" for my blueberry muffins. First try with no oil--they stuck. The cups simply must be oiled to cleanly remove a muffin. The berries have permanently stained the cup insides, and batter spill has baked this yucky brown crud on the "tin" surface. I came here looking for a solution for the baked-on crud. On a positive note--the muffins are good. Muffin crispiness is enhanced by oiling the cups or leaving the muffins in the "tin" awhile before removal. The recipe called for 25 minutes at 400 degrees but the muffin edges are overly crunchy--30 minutes at 375 degrees works well.

I got some from my neighbour,she used them for cake but she had the problem that no ammount of dish washing liquid would make the greasy feeling go away and over time the silicon molds stained also.

So now i use them to make soap cakes, pretty gifts one can make with silicon molds.

But for food...no...i am even throwing out all the non-sticking pans and molds.

I do not want to use them anymore because if birds die when they have to breath kitchen air with these teflon foams you can not guarantee it will not affect humans too.

And i also hate it to buy new pans every couple of years.

The steel pans my mother and grandmother had are still good but the new teflon coated garbage...no way..no..never again

Still in love with silicon muffin cups - just not for baking! They are absolutely perfect for freezing extra, chicken stock, tomato sauce, apple sauce etc.

I just received a set of expensive silicone bakeware in a light green colour. I've encountered no problem in cooking with them but the staining is horrendous. I first baked 4 large stuffed mushrooms in my oven dish and when i took the dish out of the oven the entire thing had been stained a dark brown, except for four unharmed green circles where the mushrooms had sat. It was as if the dish had burned in places where it didn't have a watery food substance as a heat sink. Has anyone else found this? I cannot remove the stains after many hours of elbow grease and i dare not use bleach in there as some detergent seems to stick inside the silicone. Any Ideas?

Helen

When you cook traditionally on a aluminum pan that you have to grease to prevent sticking, you use butter or some oil right?

Well as the product cooks up, this "extra" butter on the bottom is going to help brown the muffins and cakes on the bottoms, giving them that toasty feel because that film is essentially frying the edges coming into contact with it.

I have never used a silicone pan, but this seemed obvious to me.

I'd love to be convinced that they are good, because they "should" be easy, shouldn't they? but my muffins go kinda rubbery in the silicon muffin pan - the texture is a bit odd - very smooth, even with bran muffins. They are smooth on the outside, and begin to overcook in the middle. What am I doing wrong? has anyone else had this problem?
any ideas welcome..thanks :)

I'm somewhat disillusioned, too. It stains, and some of my cupcake moulds and both Victoria sponge silicone pans have taken on the smell of washing up liquid that I couldn't get out by rinsing. The next batch of baking tasted of ... you guessed it: washing up liquid. I think I may have cured the Victoria sponge moulds by putting them in the oven at 200 degrees, without batter, and burning the smell off, but I'll have to bake a sponge to test how successful that was. Also, the disgusting greasy feeling, and the way they always dry ugly with greasy water marks. I tried making Yorkshire puddings in silicone, because the manufacturer's leaflet said it was fine to do so. What a mistake. I ended up with Yorkshire disasters and a permanently ruined mould of 6 larger cupcakes. Those disgusting, sticky, smelly yellow patches of burnt oil have never gone out.

I got excited about getting some silicone baking sheets but after reading your article and these comments, I might try the parchment paper instead. I have been using non stick aluminum paper by Reynolds. I notice that the bottom of my flat bread is kind of shiny and never really bakes to a toasty crust, like the top does. Does anyone know if there are dangers using non stick aluminum? And if I did use the silicone baking sheet, doesn't that make the baking time even longer because now the bottom of the pan is even thicker? Any help is appreciated. : )

Hi
Don't know if you can help me, I have silicon letters, I used them to do my daughter a cake spelling out her name. I made my cake mix and filled up the letters with the left over mix, I made cupcake. The cupcakes where love,y but the letters dried out. I did read that you let them cool in the mold. Could this be why as I turned them out od mold to cool on rack?
I would love any advise you can give to get the cake letters to be as yummy as the cupcakes.
Thank you

One thing I found that helps to get rid of the greasy feeling and the whitish coating that sometimes appears.. lysol wipes or some other grease fighting item. The wipes with the scrubbing side work the best. I then follow up with a good washing in soap and very hot water. Hope that helps anyone. I actually love my silicone muffin tin (I use the paper liner cups either way but I like how they come out in comparison to my metal tin) I also use a silicone strainer and I have to say... I absolutely LOVE it. I have yet to try the round and square cake pans I purchased recently.

The white stuff means that you are using poor quality silicone--white stuff is filler materials that react badly w/heat/

Well made silicone will not produce white stuff.

Products tasting like soap is a comment some relatives have told me about cookies etc, when I use Silpat mats. I have switched to the silicon paper which I bought a case at a food distribution place, same that is used by bakeries all over. 1000 sheets which I must cut in 1/2 for $40 so I have 2000 sheets ($.02 per sheet). I think I have enough for a longgggg time and give some to friends. It is a large flat box.

How do you get mold out of silicone dishes/bakeware?! I have various silicone pans, cupcake liners, etc and never had a problem with mold until we bought flip-top sport cups that have a silicone stopper in the top to keep it from leaking. A few times now a cup has gotten lost in the strangest places and weren't found until mold had formed in there. I've tried soaking the stopper in bleach water, peroxide, hot soapy water, run through the dishwasher, even boiling them to no avail! I just cant get the dark moldy spots off the tops! I even contacted the company(Nalgene) to see if I could just buy replacement stoppers and of course, they don't sell just the stoppers- I'd have to buy the whole cap and stopper assemblies. Can anyone help?!