Test baking? For real? December 10, 2008

This xmas we plan to make things to send to people – in years past it’s mostly been my duty (which I assign to myself, mind you) to organize and perform any baking and/or crafting for gifts, though last year Michael did help in the packaging which was a huge relief. This year he brought it up which surprised me a little but if it means he’ll head up some of it then yay!

In any case we made a decision to find some silicone bakeware to use in this endeavor. We searched far and wide for cute shaped pans to no avail. Finally we chanced upon one snowflake cupcake pan at A.C. Moore and a large bundt at Target but that was all we could find. I went online and found a large flower cupcake pan and some mini bundt cups on Target.com. But then a week later when I was in Marden’s they had a HUGE display of Wilton silicon bakeware, the exact same stuff we had seen at Bed, Bath & Beyond (in fact they still had the BBB price tags on them, blacked out with permanent marker) so I picked up some bread pans, cake pans, muffin pans, mini muffin pans and madeleines as I’ve always wanted to make those, all for around 70% off. It so figures that the one place I wasn’t looking specifically would have what I wanted. Needless to say we now have a HUGE amount of silicon bakeware where before we had none at all. I also scored a really nice Nordicware small rose muffin pan – even though it was non-stick aluminum I had seen the same rose-shaped cakes at Kate’s wedding and really liked them, so finding it at Marden’s for $15 instead of the retail price of $38 was very exciting to me :D

I was a little leery of silicon so I did some Googling and found that it’s considered to be very safe – silicon is inert so it won’t combine with food when heated (as long as you don’t heat it above 500 degrees) and even if it were ingested it would pass through the body without being absorbed. That’s why it’s used inside the body for medical purposes due to its safety. I felt better about using the pans after reading up on them.

In a sudden fit of preparedness I decided to do some test baking tonight. Ready for the pictoral?

Okay, first up: Banana Muffins. I used a new, really horrible recipe that I am not at all pleased with. I won’t use it again. In any case I tested out the Wilton brand muffin and mini muffin pans on a double batch of that crap recipe, here’s how it went.

Mini muffins:

They browned very nicely on top though they sort of resemble little popovers. Oh man, I could use these to make popovers! I love popovers. I poked a couple to see if they were stuck.

No sticking at all! The only thing I noticed is that since I had them on a steel cookie sheet the bottoms browned more than I was expecting. In the future I’ll either put a Silpat on top of the cookie sheet and under the muffin pan, or bake for a little longer at a lower temperature.

Next were the standard size muffins.

Again, pretty perfect! They were on a small cookie sheet (the only thing that would fit in the oven beside the large cookie sheet) and you can see how the tilted pans made the batter rise sideways. Kind of neat.

And again, slightly over-browned but no sticking at all. I waited until the pan was cool (about 1-2 minutes), then was able to easily grab the muffins with my fingers and put them on cooling racks. The muffins were still too hot to handle, however, so I will know to wait longer next time.

But as I said, they tasted kind of weird.

Wilton Easy Flex Mini Muffin Pan: A
Wilton Easy Flex Muffin Pan: A

Let’s check on Brigid.

Brigid: A+

Next up: Spice Cake (a recipe I have used with much success). I mixed up a double batch of batter, which was very nearly too much for my mixer.

For this round I was using a generic brand flower muffin pan, a Wilton snowflake muffin pan, the Nordicware rose muffin pan, and with the extra batter I decided to try out a few of the KitchenAid mini bundt muffin cups.

I was able to cram the two silicone muffin pans in the oven along with a couple of the mini bundt cups, but the rose muffin pan was too wide so it had to sit out and wait. I hoped the batter wouldn’t flatten while it sat. I put the remainder of the batter into a few more mini bundt cups and on a lark popped them in the toaster oven at 325.

Toaster oven mini bundts:

These very surprisingly came out just fine. I was concerned about the heat sources being so close to the cups but they didn’t have any trouble. The cakes were slightly browner than their conventional oven counterparts but weren’t overcooked. This is a good thing to know should I ever need to whip up something last minute while the oven is already being used.

Soon after, the silicon pans came out of the oven.

Everything looked pretty good. The conventional oven cakes were more even on top (bottom), but otherwise nothing too earth-shattering. I shook out the mini bundts from the toaster oven and from the conventional oven.

The toaster oven bundts were slightly browner, due no doubt to being so close to the heating elements. Still, they baked all the way through and didn’t suffer any ill effects.

The conventional oven bundts also came out of the molds with very little problem (there were a few crumbs stuck to the center piece but nothing drastic) even though I had forgotten to spray oil into them before filling. Very cute!

KitchenAid Mini Bundt Muffin Cups: A-

Then it came time for the snowflakes and flowers. I was so excited as my experiences thus far had been positive…

Oh – oh my. EPIC FAIL.

I tried to pry one out while it was still hot and saw it would be a disaster, so I waited until it cooled but the cakes were still so firmly attached to these things I had to turn them inside out. I had followed the directions and used spray oil on the pans just as I did with the muffin and mini muffin pans, yet the batter stuck horribly. The details on the snowflakes didn’t show up at all on the few pieces that managed to come out intact, and the flowers had some detail but not very much. It looks like I had some lumps of brown sugar that didn’t get dissolved and that wreaked havoc, nonstick spray or no. The cake was very light and fluffy and delicious, just fugly and non-giftable. I did, however, detect a slight “plasticky” taste in the flower cakes. Blech.

Wilton Mini Snowflake Silicone Mold: F
Silicone Zone Flower Muffin Pan: D-

Last but not least, the timer beeped and I took the Nordicware pan out of the oven. It looked innocent enough:

But I was convinced that I would end up with another pile of crumbs and chunks of half-demolished spice cake. I let it sit for a bit to cool and then prepared to turn it over on the cookie sheet and shake it to loosen its load, employing a plastic spoon to pry out what I could.

Much to my surprise the moment I tipped it, all these perfect little rosebuds just tumbled out with a sound like tinkling fairy laughter. I think I even saw glitter. Could it be? Could conventional aluminum (albeit with the cheat of non-stick coating) be the way to go? Let’s get a closer look.

They really did look very good. With the exception of a few air bubbles I neglected to knock out they were perfect. Firm and nicely shaped and with lovely detail.

Nordicware Sweetheart Rose Muffin Pan: A+

Mmm, spice cake.

So there you have it. I’m going to do some more sleuthing to try and figure out what would work best with those shaped silicon pans – it’s nice to know I can at least use the muffin pans without fear, I hate paper muffin cups so it’ll be nice not to have to deal with them any more. I can make all sorts of breakfast muffins and treats to stash in kidlet’s lunch box.

Now I kind of want to get the Nordicware pan I saw at BBB that makes cakes shaped like a train, or maybe the big castle! I’m so easily amused.

Addendum: I was cheesed off that I spent $24.99 (gasp!) on that Silicon Zone flower pan, so I wrote to Target at like 1:30am telling them how awful it was and that I didn’t think it was worth the money. This morning I found a very nice email from Target apologizing for my bad experience and issuing a refund for the pan plus tax. Wow!

Target.com Customer Service: A++!