Sizing up silicone

GADGETS | Chefs and home cooks weigh pros, cons of synthetic cookware

Stretchy, jiggly and vividly colored ... it sounds more akin to condoms than cookware.

Can silicone, the rubbery stuff of breast implants and bathtub caulking, really bake a cake as well as a solid metal pan?

Chefs love it

"I prefer natural ... but as far as cooking, silicone is great," quips chef Sean Pharr of Uptown's Fat Cat. "These tools allow for easy removal of product, consistency in heating, they don't get corroded and because they are flexible and lightweight you can store them easily."

"It's very, very convenient," says chef Jean-Marc Loustaunau of Cafe Pyrenees in Libertyville, extolling the nonstick and freezer-to-oven-and-back qualities of silicone bakeware.

By now, many home cooks have discovered silicone-rubber spatulas, which don't melt or harden; silicone pastry brushes, which don't shed hairs; and flexible nonstick baking mats.

Other silicone cookware is slowly becoming accepted for its lightness, even cooking and crushable storability the pros value.

"It's kind of foolproof," Pharr says. "We would make 150 to 200 mini banana breads, and they would all come out the same."

"You can literally roll it up and toss it in the corner," says chef Rick Gresh of David Burke's Primehouse in River North. "It's a little more even in cooking. It doesn't have the hot spots of metal cookware.

"It's definitely the wave of the future."

Why it works

U.S. consumers first began to see silicone bakeware about five years ago. Now, it seems, the brightly hued, squashable pans are everywhere, and every cookware maker has a line of them.

Silicone rubber is a synthetic material made from silica, the main component of sand and quartz.

Unlike natural rubber, made from tree sap, it remains flexible at a wide range of temperatures without cracking or melting. It's also completely inert and won't transfer to foods.

But all silicone cookware isn't made alike, warns Michael Karyo, chief operating officer of SiliconeZone, one of the first U.S. companies to market silicone to home cooks.

Select pans with glossy surfaces -- the most nonstick -- he advises. Twist or fold the pan to look for telltale white showing through the color, a sign of cheap fillers that can impair the silicone's performance.

"Some of the cheaper stuff doesn't bake out as well," agrees Nancy Siler, vice-president of consumer affairs for Wilton Enterprises in Woodridge. Siler says good silicone pans bake much like metal pans.

Bakers especially recommend silicone for anything you'd put in a waterbath and unmold, such as cheesecake -- no more wrapping springform pans in foil. Karyo claims that meatloaf baked in silicone stays moister.

Home cooks are hooked

Streeterville resident Daniele Dulong Roberts used silicone pans for the first time this Christmas to make friands, teacakes from her native France, with great success.

"It was perfect," she says, "wonderful to unmold, very easy to clean. Eventually, I'm going to convert."

The pop-art colors and multiple shapes of silicone appeal to Catherine Lambrecht of Highland Park, who can't wait to bake cupcakes for her 4-year-old niece in Wilton Silly-Feet! baking cups.

"That is such imaginative, cool stuff," Lambrecht says.

Some chefs, including Primehouse's Gresh, make their own molds from food-grade silicone. (You can get 6-ounce trial kits from www.culinart.net for $12 plus shipping.)

Gresh says silicone allows for finer detail than metal.

When he competed in the Bocuse d'Or cooking competition at the National Restaurant Association show, Gresh made a mousseline in a fish-shaped silicone mold.

"It looked like a real fish, with every shimmering scale," he says.

The one drawback of silicone, Gresh says: "It kind of takes the fun out of the little kids banging the pots and pans."

Leah A. Zeldes is a local freelance writer.