Home baking is a sign of well-being in the family. Fresh muffins, baked personally in the home oven from real products, can cheer up and give comfort. Silicone baking dishes are of interest to almost every hostess who is fond of this type of cooking. Silicone products have come to our kitchens relatively recently.
Maybe it’s better to continue to cook pastries the old fashioned way?
An older generation of housewives happens to be very biased towards such forms, showing distrust. They argue this with the fact that solid Teflon or tin forms are much safer, but there is some kind of silicone and there is no guarantee that it will not melt in the oven. Yes, and many are just more used to using old and well-known devices for baking. Another part of the housewives is sure that silicone baking dishes are modern and safe products, and also very convenient to use. Such housewives will not exchange these molds for other containers under any circumstances. There is another third part, this category of lovers of pampering their family with delicious pastries is eyeing this product, wants to buy it, but they are beginning to be overcome with all sorts of doubts about the correctness of their intentions.
True answers to questions about the use of silicone in baking
Are silicone baking dishes harmful? What are they like? How to use these products at home? We begin to consider these issues right now.
First about good
- To begin with, baking in silicone forms in the oven is high and perfectly baked from the inside. This is partly, of course, due to the variety of designs of these devices, but partly due to the fact that silicone does not start to cruelly fry a cake or cake when heated. The heat goes inside, baking the cooking product.
- There is a great opportunity to use such forms not only for baking, but they can also be adapted for freezing. In such dishes, jellied meat, various types of jelly, homemade ice cream turn out well. Silicone baking dishes can also be placed in the oven right from the refrigerator. The temperature corridor maintained by these products is on average from -45 to +240 degrees.
- You can bake not only in the oven, these forms will cope with their task of baking using a microwave and gas oven.
- This material does not absorb odors at all. Meat and fish can be prepared in the same form in which you bake a cupcake.
And then again about the good
There are many rumors and disputes about the harmfulness. In principle, the silicone forms themselves are not harmful. But again, it depends on the integrity of the manufacturer. If you get forms from a well-known and well-established brand, you will not be affected by trouble. Therefore, in order not to be disappointed in the quality and safety of silicone baking dishes, beware of fakes that have always been and always will be. It is fakes that harm the reputation of bona fide manufacturing companies, and are also capable of harming the health of consumers.
Food-grade silicone molds are made. Special characteristics of this type of material prevent the reaction with hot metal objects, heated oil, dough. Even breast implants are made from such pure silicone. Therefore, it is absolutely not harmful. But let's return, perhaps, to the kitchen, to our baking, or rather, silicone molds.
Start to bake
So, we did not find anything terrible in silicone molds, which means that it is time to start directly using this useful and safe device. Where to start?
Before using a silicone baking dish, it must be washed thoroughly! Wash with dishwashing detergent, and preferably using a soft brush. In retail outlets, such forms are in most cases not provided with a sterile packaging container. Therefore, during storage in the warehouse and during loading, and even while the goods are simply standing on a shelf in the store, pollution occurs.
Are silicone molds lubricated before baking?
The form lubricates only before the initial departure to the oven. But you need to lubricate very carefully, using only vegetable oil. The best thing is to pour oil into the bottom of the mold so that the bend from the bottom to the walls certainly does not remain dry and does not cause inconvenience in the future. If the form contains complex artistic elements (rose, fish), you need to very carefully smear all the notches with a brush. Next, the molds should stand for 10 to 20 minutes to absorb. Now drain the excess oil and you can fill our molds with dough.
6 important tips for comfortable baking
How to use silicone baking molds to last you a long time? First of all, you need to remember some features that exist during the operation of products:
- The material is very flexible, therefore it is desirable to put the molds on a solid surface, and then fill it with dough. For this purpose, you can adapt a regular enamelled or tin sheet for baking.
- Never cut a dish cooked in the mold directly in the same container! You easily damage the silicone mold with a knife. For the same reason, do not pick pastries with a fork.
- For easy removal of the cake from the mold, the finished product must be removed from the oven, put on a hard surface and left for five or ten minutes. After the set time has passed, the cupcake will easily move away from the bottom and walls of the mold.
- Carefully ensure that your favorite silicone baking dish does not end up in the oven at a temperature critical for utensils! When the plus temperature reaches the mark of more than 250 degrees, your form will turn into ... no, not even a pumpkin, but a smelly burning lumps of fused silicone and dough.
- Silicone products are instantly baked. Due to the fact that heating the dishes is not required, and the temperature immediately affects the dough, the usual cooking time may be reduced. Watch out for pastries, especially the first time, until you get used to it.
- When, when trying to put the mold in the oven, you suddenly find that you have not calculated it slightly with the height of the product, you can simply take the scissors and cut the sides of the product to a suitable level.