Flexible Non-Stick Silicone Muffin Pans - Great for Gluten Free Muffins and Cupcakes

My silicone muffin pans get used a lot, both for muffins and cupcakes. It gets especially frequent use during the summer when the county fair comes along. 4-H baking is our summer thing around here, and a standard awesome plate full of muffins is part of the plan.

My daughters have made apple struesel, banana nut, and are now going to try blueberry muffins. In addition to just having a high volume of muffin baking, we bake gluten free because of my husband's celiac disease. His diagnosis was about nine years ago, so the girls have only learned how to bake gluten free.

Most gluten free baking is fairly similar, but some aspects of gluten free dough or batter can be unexpectedly different. In many cases, it's a lot more sticky than mixtures made from regular wheat flour. Making sure baking items are reliably non-stick is a huge part of having a successful outcome. Thankfully, silicone muffin pans make the job easy.

Just because of habit, I do spray a bit of Pam in each cup. But I know I've forgotten before and they've often turned out of the pan well anyway. I generally expect muffins to do this a little better than cupcakes, which can be a bit drier as they bake. But for baking mixtures that tend to stick and leave hard baked-on residues, the silicone is immensely convenient.

Another plus is that after the muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, they are pretty easy to pop out. If you wanted to put paper liners in, you still can. But most of the time we just make them for our home and don't worry about it. In this case, the silicone cup is flexible enough that you can gently pop the muffin out from behind.

Sometimes it is easier to gently lift it out with a knife or spoon. But if you aren't too impatient and have let the bottoms cool enough to keep their shape (oops, caved some in because I couldn't wait!), then releasing them from the bottom is a snap. The silicone also cools much faster than the metal parts of the pan, so when this is cool enough to touch the bottom of the muffin is usually cool enough to stand on its own.

My pans are old and look kind of beat up, but they are in great shape as far as baking goes. Someday I'm sure they will get warped or something won't pop out correctly, but for now they are good to go. It better be ready for the summer because it's go-time for county fair baking!