Silicone tools for the kitchen

[MelissaH]

I have a silicone pan liner, KitchenAid brand (I think). It came as a set of two, one red and one blue, one for a half-sheet pan and one for a more traditional rimless cookie sheet. I tried using the red one (half-sheet size) once, and I watched it expand through my oven window. (The Silpat-brand liners I have don't do this.) It was kind of scary, watching my cookies move and the red liner ripple on the pan.

I won't be using it for baking again, but it should work nicely to keep a large cutting board from sliding on the counter. I think it would also be good as a pan liner when freezing items on a pan before bagging them.

MelissaH

[prasantrin]

I was initially entranced by the qualities of a wooden-handled silicone-bladed spatula.

But thinking of hygiene made me wince every time the 'joint' was submerged in the food. (I still use a really narrow version for scraping out jamjars!)

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Some spatulas have tops that come off so you can clean the joint and the part that sticks into the spatula. I have a Le Creuset spatula that has "removable head" written on it, and I have four Hamilton Beach spatulas that don't say that, but the heads do come off (these particular spatulas suck in terms of usage, though).

[Peter the eater]

Here's how I would score the silicone items in my kitchen, out of score to a perfcet ten:

9 spatula

8 whisk

9 muffin liner

7 rolling pin

5 pot holder sheet/trivet

7 clam style mitt (mine has a frog's face)

8 baking sheets and pans

[ghostrider]

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Are these things safe to use in cooking? (Assuming that it's proper to ask this question in this thread rather than starting a new one.)

I recently got one of those fish flipper spatulas, the angled black one with the silver-colored handle at the bottom of the photo above.

When I use it to flip filets that I'm sauteeing, it gives off the stench of burning plastic, which winds up infused into the fish.

When I bought the spatula, it had a label that said "can be used at temperatures up to 400 F" (or possibly 450, I don't remember the exact number). I thought that meant that it would work for the purpose for which it was designed, but apparently it doesn't. Either the label is wrong, or the surface of my frying pan gets to a higher temperature and the spatula reacts.

Does anyone else have experience with this flipper? Is it really useful only for removing poached fish from the poaching liquid in spite of what its label says?

[phatj]

I like my silicone whisk for making sauces in non-stick pans.  Also, the silicone bulb on the turkey baster doesn't subcumb to the heat as quickly as the old rubber ones did.

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I have one of these and don't care for it, actually. The silicone coating is too grippy on the surface of the bowl or pan and I find it difficult to whisk something smoothly. I have a nylon whisk that I like better. It doesn't have the same degree of heat resistance but how often do you whisk something that's 500 degrees anyway?

For the record, I like my nylon spatulas a lot.