Fancy food molds: historical and modern usage

[Gifted Gourmet]

By now most members here have seen and marveled at Rachel Perlow's shimmering rainbow jello mold. It made me aware of how different foods can be molded into delights for the eye as well as the palate. After a bit of searching, I found some great examples of molds for presentation:

variety of food molds

these at eBay

molds from Victorias Past

The food molds are part of a tradition that developed in England between the Middle Ages and the 19th century. Pudding, ice cream and jellies in the 19th century were symbols of sophistication and status. Victorians loved jellies and creams that allowed you to look through a clear jelly into a decorated cream inside. Such desserts were made in ornate molds so the outside jelly could be set before it was filled with cream.

and then there are people who simply opt to use a loaf pan to mold their creations as in this delightful fruit mold a Berry and Banana Terrine ...

Do you have any molds to use to display your cooking beautifully?

Do you bake foods in molds for a more "finished" and sophisticated look?

[srhcb]

My Mother recently moved into an assited living facility and we'll be cleaning out her kitchen soon, and I'm sure we'll unearth a few of these. I recall her having several copper molds, one a fish and one a cluster of grapes, but I don't remember her using them for anything but decoration.

She also has a wooden sheep butter mold that belonged to her mother, who only used to use it for Easter Dinner. If I find that I'll take it to my Cousin Dr Mike's "Annual Easter Gathering of Serbian Relations".

We have a plastic Pooh Bear mold!

SB (If I had an Eeyore mold I'd make Grape Jello)

[Carolyn Tillie]

I've shopped for historical fancy molds in antique stores and on eBay for years. They are far from cheap, some going up to several hundred dollars. I have bought some modern reproductions but would love to find some of the historical molds...

[Taboni]

Something makes me think that andiesenji has a closet full of these in myriad shapes and sizes

[Gifted Gourmet]

Something makes me think that andiesenji has a closet full of these in myriad shapes and sizes 

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Which was precisely what I thought when I first picked this topic! Andiesenji has a lot of items for the kitchen, both modern and vintage!

[Adam Balic]

From Ivan Day's website -Everything you might like to know about culinary moulds.

This years Leed's food symposium will be on moulded food.

[azureus]

By now most members here have seen and marveled at Rachel Perlow's shimmering rainbow jello mold. It made me aware of how different foods can be molded into delights for the eye as well as the palate.

Do you have any molds to use to display your cooking beautifully?

Do you bake foods in molds for a more "finished" and sophisticated look?

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So far, molds haven't fit into my style of cooking and baking. The few that I have were purchased more for their aethetics. But I find myself seduced by the Rainbow Jello Mold and by Mary Whiting's Fruit Terrine.

I have a couple reproduction springerle cookies molds. I have always intended to make springerle with them, but the cookies take so much time to mold. I know that these reproduction molds are often now used for paper casting for craft projects. I also have a cast iron "muffin" pan, (I'm not sure of its intended use), where the individual molds are in the shape of lambs' and lions' heads. It's not very old, maybe twenty or thirty years.

The mold that I've used the most is a vintage pewter ice cream mold in the form of a tom turkey. It's very detailed, and holds about 4oz of ice cream. If you pack the ice cream correctly and get it to release, you get a three-dimensional bird that will stand on your plate. I've made these for dessert for friends on occasion. I've also made clay castings from this mold.

An antique store that I was in one time had the ultimate ice cream mold: It was the sea god, Neptune, rising from the waves surrounded by sea creatures. It held a quart of ice cream, at least. The cost was $$$$! Definitely, this mold represented another time and place from where I live today.

April

[Gifted Gourmet]

From Ivan Day's website -Everything you might like to know about culinary moulds.

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I am greatly impressed by the fancy molds on the pages of this website, Adam!

It would have been quite something to sit down to a meal in those days to see what elaborate designs were presented at the table. Beautiful! Thanks for the link!

[Eden]

I am greatly impressed by the fancy molds on the pages of this website, Adam!

It would have been quite something to sit down to a meal in those days to see what elaborate designs were presented at the table. Beautiful! Thanks for the link!

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It would indeed. I have just finished reading Cooking for Kings, a biography of Antonin Careme, which includes tons of illustrations of his food molds, sculptures etc, they blow me away.

I love Ivan Day's pieces. I really want some of those molds!

along with several candy molds, and a couple interesting tart pans I have a few copper shortbread molds including a 16th c. style peasant man & woman, that I just love because they look much like early gingerbread molds.

[Pontormo]

I own only one now since the plastic ones got lost or tossed during moves long, long ago.

On the wall of my dining room, close to the kitchen hangs a copper lobster.

I do not care for seafood mousse. It was purchased for an advanced seminar, "Idea Art," led by one of the Studio Art professors. My semester-long project involved transforming food into works of visual art. (I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before somewhere in eGullet.)

I managed to find a tiny crafts store that sold supplies for making sugar eggs: the kind you produce by sealing two half-egg shapes together with piped frosting, then fill with panoramas that are viewed by peering through a decorated peep hole on one side.

Once I mastered the egg shape, I decided to mold a peach and turquiose-streaked lobster. I wish I could remember the scene constructed for the interior.

I have used the lobster to make desserts as well: a pure white yogurt mold (Gourmet, some time in the 80s), similar to panna cotta, with a raspberry sauce; a chocolate thing with an unfortunately racist name, Negresse en Chemise, which I hope was blunted by transmogrification; and once for a guest allergic to sugar, gluten & dairy products, a cantaloupe lobster with a blueberry-honey sauce.

[sparrowgrass]

I have a cast iron mold that makes teddy bear muffins. Or as my kids called them, cubcakes.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Presently trying to decide which of these molds to purchase:

molded food options

Leaning toward the Chrysanthemum and the Heart ... and even, heaven forbid, the Cathedral! Oy! But each would look so lovely with a rainbow gelatin filling ...

Have any opinions for me which to select?

[KatieLoeb]

I think the Crysanthemum is lovely. Do you think the intracacies of the petals would get lost with too many colors of Jell-o? I'd think something more along the lines of a regular cake to see the mold used to best advantage, but maybe I'm wrong.