Using Silicone muffin pans

On Sun 15 Jan 2006 09:46:51p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Alexis?

Quoted message said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions? I've made muffins from a basic tried-and-true blueberry
muffin recipe, and tonight I made popovers (to go with the potato corn
chowder). This is the first time ever I've not had my popovers "pop".

Recipe I used for the popovers:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
3 cups eggs
dash of salt.

fill cold, greased muffin tins (I've always used muffin tins instead of
a popover pan and never had problems before) half-full. Put in a cold
oven and turn to 450 degrees. Bake, without opening the oven door at
all, for 30 minutes.

Like I said, this is the first time they haven't worked. The only
difference is the pan. So, if there's anyone here who uses and likes
their silicon muffin pans, I'd love to hear what you do with them!

Thanks,
Alexis.

Alexis, popovers and Yorkshire puddings usually require a very hot
preheated pan that will hold the heat and give an instant push to the
batter. This is impossible with the new silicone pans.

I've never tried your method, but I suspect that the silicone pans cannot
themselves sustain a hot enough temperature to produce the rising afforded
by metal.

--
Wayne Boatwright Õ¿Õ¬
__________________________________________________________________
And if we enter a room full of manure, may we believe in the pony.

Remove all "[censored]'s" from address to e-mail directly.

Alexis said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions? I've made muffins from a basic tried-and-true blueberry
muffin recipe, and tonight I made popovers (to go with the potato corn
chowder). This is the first time ever I've not had my popovers "pop".

Recipe I used for the popovers:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
3 cups eggs
dash of salt.

fill cold, greased muffin tins (I've always used muffin tins instead of
a popover pan and never had problems before) half-full. Put in a cold
oven and turn to 450 degrees. Bake, without opening the oven door at
all, for 30 minutes.

Like I said, this is the first time they haven't worked. The only
difference is the pan. So, if there's anyone here who uses and likes
their silicon muffin pans, I'd love to hear what you do with them!

Thanks,
Alexis.

I don't have the silicon muffin pans but have you tried dusting the
muffin pan with flour after you've greased it? The flour might give
the batter something to cling to.

Quoted message said:

3 cups eggs

Huh-wha??

3 **cups** of eggs?

Oh...and did you change flours? Low-protein flours make good biscuits,
but they rise poorly...

--Blair

I've been using silocon pans recently for a variety of things --
different sizes, large and small muffins, banana bread loaves, etc.

However, for popovers and Yorkshire Pudds, as someone said, you need to
pre-heat the pan to very hot. This is one case where you need to go
back to metal. For popovers I have special pans where theindividual
cups are separated from each other. For real Yorkshire Pudding I use
old metal pie pans, and get a large result to cut or tear apart.

There seems to be a recent trend on this board to keep confusing
Yorkshire puddng with popovers -- although they have similar means of
preparation, but different ingredients.

"Alexis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions? I've made muffins from a basic tried-and-true blueberry
muffin recipe, and tonight I made popovers (to go with the potato corn
chowder). This is the first time ever I've not had my popovers "pop".

Recipe I used for the popovers:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
3 cups eggs
dash of salt.

fill cold, greased muffin tins (I've always used muffin tins instead of
a popover pan and never had problems before) half-full. Put in a cold
oven and turn to 450 degrees. Bake, without opening the oven door at
all, for 30 minutes.

Like I said, this is the first time they haven't worked. The only
difference is the pan. So, if there's anyone here who uses and likes
their silicon muffin pans, I'd love to hear what you do with them!

Thanks,
Alexis.

I've used the silicon muffin pans a few times; the first time the muffins
came out great, light and cooked, and slid out of the pan

the next few times, I did exactly the same thing I did the first time, and
each time they have stuck terribly to the pan, though they have risen well
and cooked thoroughly

Have spoken to a few cooking 'experts' (though not anyone in rfc I admit)
who in the main say that I shouldn't grease or flour the pans (I didn't) and
they're supposed to keep working well, but I haven't found that to be the
case...maybe I'll try the butter/flour thing and see what happens
Cheers from Oz
Maria

f

"Alexis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions?

I'm not wild about them, myself. I have a silicone mini-muffin pan and
while I don't have trouble getting things to rise, I don't like the
floppiness of the pan. I spray w/ PAM or the equivalent. The muffins don't
"tumble" out, rather, I have to push the individual cups inside out from the
bottom to pop the muffins out. They don't stick, though. Also, you're
supposed to cool the muffins before removing (at least, that's what my pans
said) and I usually like to remove them after about 5 minutes, to eat them
while hot.

Not sure why your muffins aren't rising; sorry!

Chris

Wayne Boatwright said:

On Sun 15 Jan 2006 09:46:51p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Alexis?

Quoted message said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions? I've made muffins from a basic tried-and-true blueberry
muffin recipe, and tonight I made popovers (to go with the potato corn
chowder). This is the first time ever I've not had my popovers "pop".

Recipe I used for the popovers:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
3 cups eggs
dash of salt.

fill cold, greased muffin tins (I've always used muffin tins instead of
a popover pan and never had problems before) half-full. Put in a cold
oven and turn to 450 degrees. Bake, without opening the oven door at
all, for 30 minutes.

Like I said, this is the first time they haven't worked. The only
difference is the pan. So, if there's anyone here who uses and likes
their silicon muffin pans, I'd love to hear what you do with them!

Thanks,
Alexis.

Alexis, popovers and Yorkshire puddings usually require a very hot
preheated pan that will hold the heat and give an instant push to the
batter. This is impossible with the new silicone pans.

I've never tried your method, but I suspect that the silicone pans cannot
themselves sustain a hot enough temperature to produce the rising afforded
by metal.

Thanks, Wayne.

Yes, it's three eggs, not three cups of egg (sorry for the typo). I've
never made a Yorkshire pudding, but I make popovers (with the
chilled-pan method) several time per month.

The timer went off on the silicone batch just a minute before I sent
the original post. Because I figured I had nothing to lose, I kept the
popovers in the oven while I was posting and let them bake for an
additional 10 minutes (it seemed like a long additional time -- a full
third of the original baking time, I know). Lo and behold, at the end
of the additional ten minutes I had *popped* popovers! They were
somewhat more dense than the usual metal-pan ones, but they tasted just
as rich and were perfect with the soup.

However, I think I'll go back to metal for these. Muffin tins have
always worked just fine. I know the reasons behind using the dedicated
popover tins, but honestly, I'd rather not have a separate dish to
store. I much prefer to use something I already have -- single-purpose
items, especially those used so infrequently, take up (IMO) more space
than they're worth.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll try using additional flour on
the edges next time just to see what happens. These popovers did slip
right out -- I didn't have to press the cups from the bottom.

Alexis.

Chris said:

"Alexis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyone had good luck with silicone muffin pans? I received some
recently, and I've only used them a few times -- but I'm not having any
luck getting anything in them to rise. My guess is that the silicone
"gives" too easily to allow enough support for the batters. Any
suggestions?

I'm not wild about them, myself. I have a silicone mini-muffin pan and
while I don't have trouble getting things to rise, I don't like the
floppiness of the pan.

Some of them have rigid frames.

Quoted message said:

I spray w/ PAM or the equivalent.

I use something made by Nordicware.

Doug

The muffins don't

Quoted message said:

"tumble" out, rather, I have to push the individual cups inside out from the
bottom to pop the muffins out. They don't stick, though. Also, you're
supposed to cool the muffins before removing (at least, that's what my pans
said) and I usually like to remove them after about 5 minutes, to eat them
while hot.

Not sure why your muffins aren't rising; sorry!

Chris

--
Doug Weller --
Doug & Helen's Dogs http://www.dougandhelen.com
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk