The Lowdown on Silicone Bake Ware

You've all seen the infomercials, the chef raves about his new red or blue or whatever bright color bake ware that is so non stick and easy to use. But just how good is the stuff and how much is pure hype. I bought a set of the stuff and we'll see.

I found a set of the bake ware at a local Walmart for sale, I wanted to see just how good the silicone bake ware is and if the things they say about it are true. I have found that most of what they say is true to some extent but not the way they make it sound.

Like all new kitchen gadgets and devices they have come up with in the past twenty years I have been skeptical of this. I am not sure if I want to put a full cake mix into a rubber mold and toss it in at 350 degrees, only to watch it spill all over my landlords new oven. But I gave it a try.

I bought the set that includes the bundt pan, the muffin pan, the two oven mats and the two utensils from Walmart. The utensils and the mats I could take or leave but I do like the two pans, or whatever it is we now have to call them.

That is one thing that I have found out over the past couple of years, with the increase in technology we have a whole new vocabulary to learn. The silicone rubber is neat, it is flexible and does not get too hot. I was interested in how they make the stuff and have done some research.

Dow Corning and a few other companies have some information about this process and the different uses of silicone rubber. Basically silicone rubber is a rubber that does not use an organic such as the one from the rubber tree but uses silica or a type of sand to produce the rubber in a chemical process.

The most common use I could find of silicone rubber before the use of cooking utensils and bake ware is the use of rubber boots on your spark plugs. They need to be non-conductive, resistant to oil and heat and flexible. This was a good use for the newly created silicone rubber years ago when it first came out.