A friend asked me today about silicone pans. She said she got 2 pans. One is dinosaur shaped and one is car shaped and they are divided for individual portions. She said she has tried it more than once and they don’t come out of the pans very well. They have a tendency to stick even though she greases them. She used cake mix for the batter and said they were hard to ice because they were rather crumbly too. She was wondering what she did wrong.

I don’t have any silicone pans and so have never used one. I don’t know what to suggest to her.

Does the brand of silicone pan make a difference?

Any input is welcome.

I use baker’s joy spray in mine (flour spray), so she should probably add flour or use a flour spray if she is having trouble. And yes, brand is very important for the quality of silicone, however, I’m not sure sure if it directly relates to sticking, but it certainly could.

Thank you Matthew. I’ll pass that information on. I recently went to the USA and found some Baker’s Joy. I can’t seem to find it in Canada. I was limited in how much I could bring back with me so I’m not going to give her one but I may just let her try it. 

I have cheap (emergency buy at Safeways) silicone muffin pans, and they are horrible, they stick very badly. I can’t imagine they are all like that, so yes, I think you get what you pay for.

Interesting !  I wonder which brands are good and are they really worth buying?
I’ve never understood the advantage. Don’t you have to put them on a cookie sheet or something to keep them stable both in the oven, and to put them in and take them out, so the batter doesn’t spill all over the place?

Does anyone know if you can get a financier pan that is not silicone?  Or an alternative to a financier pan (short of muffin tins and madelines)?

Thanks!

I have some friends in Germany that swear by them, but then I have another friend that bought a whole set and hates them as passionately as I do - her cakes break when she tries to get them out, or they stick, or they do both. Call me conservative, but I don’t see the point of them as I very seldom have sticking problems with metal pans, and they seem to do a better job in browning the crust. And yes, the cookie sheet business - why not just use a metal pan and have both in one?

But then there are plenty of people here that love them, so there must be something about them, don’t be deterred by me…