Pros: Extremely non-stick; dishwasher-safe; good for the environment (or your waistline)
Cons: A bit light for the dishwasher
Rating: 5 out of 5
First published 12/1/2005
Review item courtesy of SiliconeZone and Jardina Communications
SiliconeZone’s silicone muffin cup liners are one of those items that made me think, “well, I guess that’s useful”–right up until I used it. Then I was hooked.
At first I thought, “what’s the big deal?” After all, there are those cheap disposable paper cups you can buy at the store, which work pretty well. And it isn’t that hard to grease a muffin pan. Then we made cloverleaf-shaped dinner rolls in muffin tins over Thanksgiving. When it came time to take the leftover rolls and package them up for storage I quickly found out just how useful the silicone liners really were. The rolls that had been cooked in liners were difficult to peel out, occasionally retaining bits of liner. The rolls that came out of the silicone liners… well, they just popped right out, leaving the liner in the muffin pan. I remember stopping and blinking in surprise at the difference.
No fat and calories from butter. No difficult-to-clean residue from sprays. No environmental waste from tossing out disposable liners or aerosol or pump cans of spray.
Cleanup is a whole lot easier too. Grease often soaks through paper liners, leaving you almost as much to clean up as if you’d just used a plain muffin pan. Nothing soaks through these. So unless you overflow the liners or spill batter, cleanup is going to be awfully easy, particularly since these liners are dishwasher-safe. On the one hand they do have a tendency to go flying around the dishwasher (they’re light!) if they aren’t in a utensil cage or similar thing. On the other hand they retain so little of whatever was in them that washing them by hand if necessary really isn’t that tough. Not to mention that they’re safe to 572 F, so at least they aren’t likely to melt onto the heating element in your dishwasher, worst case.
The package only contains six liners, so I definitely reccomend getting 2 to 4 packages depending on the size of the recipes you tend to make. The colors of the liners are quite vibrant, including everything from blue and pink to red and neon green, which I imagine kids would find pretty entertaining.
All in all, a surprisingly worthwhile little product. Yet another thing to file under, “wow, that really is handy.” And I’ve learned something new.
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