Silicone products

I recently bought silicone egg poaching cups. They're wonderful! The egg pops right out, just as promised, and I'm enjoying poached eggs for Sunday dinners.

I purchased a set of silicone bakewear that are the bright blue color. Mine work great. We gave my daughter a set of the silve colored bakewear and she has used them twice. Each time the kitchen filled with smoke. The last time she tried a different piece to cook brownies and had the same problem. Has anyone else had these problems?

I bought some mini muffin pans in silicone from a kitchenware outlet store. They came with a stainless steel 'frame' for when they're in the oven. Results were terrible-the muffins stuck. I put them in my 'thrift store donation pile'. I did use baking spray. Maybe I'll give them another chance by oiling and wiping like CeCe recommends.

I have tried a number of high temp silicone kitchen items over the years. Generally, I am very impressed. The baking sheets, both solid as well as perforated are a wonder. Spatulas spoons and other general tools are great.
I have issue with silicone items when it comes to a need for dexterity and a delicate touch. In particular silicone hot pads are all extremely clumsy. I applaud their qualities of insulation and resistance to heat (make fine trivets), but as far as grabbing things with ease, I find them all too inflexible and unmanageable for me. So I stick to heat resistant terry-cloth pads and gloves. As for bakeware, I have found them too flexible and prone to spillage up to this point. I still opt for the traditional bakeware. I have seen some with more reinforcement, but have not tried them yet.
I am open to further experimentation.

If you're just starting to explore silicone, the ones that will make you happiest are are:
1. The Orka mitt. It withstands up to 500+ degrees and is waterproof. Stick your hand in a pot of boiling water just for fun! Plus you can use as a puppet if you're bored.
2. The "spoonulas" made by Williams-Sonoma and others. These can be used to cook, stir, and scrape contents out of a pot. And again, they never melt or get too hot.
3. A silpat baking mat (to line a baking pan) for those hard-to-remove delicate cookies and other baked items. (They will never, ever stick. Perfect for the lacy ones--you can just peel them off!) My other favorite use of this mat is to grate little piles of parmesan cheese and then melt/bake them onto the mat. After letting them cool, you peel them off and serve with a bowl of soup. Yummy, and fun!

When I have worked in restaurant and catering kitchens one of the best and most valuable tools that I have used have been silicone based products. Silpat Mats are awesome since you can pour hot sugar on them without melting the mat and manipulate the sugar a lot easier while it is cooling. In my home kitchen I have used the silicone loaf pans and I did not like them at all. I spryaed it with the nonstick spray and wiped it out but it still smelled "off" while baking and had a nasty smelling smoke coming off of it in a 350 degree oven...I am thinking it was just because it was a cheaply made silicone product. All in all, the Silpat mat should be in every kitchen.

I love silocone bakeware. I make a box of Jiffy corn bread and it was away from the edges before I got it out of the oven and browned perfectly top and bottom. Equally pleasing results with their blueberry muffin mix.

I love my high-temperature, silicone spatulas. They don't melt and they don't start to chip as they get old as the rubber ones tend to do.

I have a silicone basting brush that I use to spread oil around hot pans. I like it because the bristles don't melt and the oil doesn't clog them up, but I wish that the bristles were stiffer.

Finally, I have a silicone cookie sheet that I have never baked on, but it works wonderfully well for dropping chocolates onto. They lift off perfectly and have a professional-looking pattern on the bottom.

The company that makes the Silpat and the Roulpat is called Demarle at Home. The nonstick bakeware has a layer of woven glass which makes them far superior to anything else on the market, and is their trademark. The products require no greasing ever, and clean-up
is a breeze. They are a Direct sales company which means you can only buy the products (other than the silpat and the roulpat) through a rep. Go online, and see if someone near you sells these products. They have a lifetime warranty, have been available to professional chefs in Europe for over 30 years, and are truly a high quality product. And yes, I am a rep.

Thanks for all of your interesting comments.
Karla, I'm curious if the set of bakewear you gave your daughter was made by the same manufacturer as yours. And also, if she used nonstick sprays on the pans.
From my own experiences, and from reading all of yours, I'm increasingly convinced that using nonstick sprays on silicone bakeware may create a lot of the problems with sticking, and most likely with the smoke. I know I had much better luck when I brushed the cupcake cups with melted butter instead of spraying them. They came out easily. Good luck with future attempts.

I bought a bundt cake pan by Kitchen Aid. My usual recipe, which turns out great in a regular pan was a disaster in this pan. Looks-wise, I had to set it on a cookie sheet to stabilize and so the top of the cake was flat & the cake didn't brown evenly (in some places at all). The texture was a bit off - too dense in the top (bottom while baking) and a bit dry on the botoom (top while cooking). Went to Goodwill shortly thereafter. I do love the Le Creuset silicone rubber spatulas and use them daily (I have 4, all sizes).

At a popular kitchen store in downtown Seattle, I purchased silicone lids made by Silicone Zone. They come in different sizes and colors. They can be used to cover a frypan and can also be used to form an airtight seal on plasticware in the refrigerator. I have found them invaluable especially for using with pans that don't come with lids. I also have Le Crueset trivets and have even used them as mini cutting boards, and I can't find any knife damage.

Would it be okay to bake meatloaf in silicone bakeware in the microwave? Have been wanting to try cooking individual meatloaves in the individual cupcake shapes, in the microwave; but have worried because other plastic ware becomes damaged in the microwave by high fat and/or sugar content. Has anyone tried this or read that baking high fat content in silicone, in the microwave, is specifically okay or not okay?