The Joys of Silicone

This past year, I have made some amazing progress. I have learned how to cook using my beloved slow cooker and I am now learning how to bake. As I have chronicled in an earlier post, I am now baking my own bread. This past week, I have also made a number of batches of homemade muffins using a recipe from my favorite site Allrecipes. This latter is a wonderful site as you can sign up and store your favorite recipes in your online recipe box. You can also print off recipes. It also has a wonderful search feature to look up recipes based on ingredients you want to use, ingredients you do not want to use and keywords. Very convenient and it has hundreds of slow cooker recipes.

My other discovery: silicone. Not having a bread pan, I found a nice silicone one on sale at the Great Canadian Superstore. I was amazed at how easy it is to use. For bread, I do not have to grease the pan. I just put the dough into the pan and it just pops out. Based on the ease of using the silicone for baking bread, I bought a silicone muffin pan. Works like a charm. Very easy to use and very easy to clean. With the muffins, however, I find that it is best to grease the silicone pan so the muffins do not stick.

Based on my experience, I give silicone two thumbs up for baking. I will see if I change my mind over time (i.e. how well will the silicone last and will I encounter any problems in the future). I will keep you informed.