I have two sil-pat baking sheets - one that fits a 13x18 baking sheet and another that fits a 9x13 baking sheet. I use the larger one when rolling out pie dough. I use them mostly for cookies and biscuits but have not tried them for other types of bread. I wish I had a separate round one for rolling out pie dough. I would not use it for pizza, however.

Lars

where did you get the smaller one? I was only able to find the sheet pan size?
I have a roll of a silicone material....works OK for roll outs....but I have a huge roll out board that slides under the counter, topped with Formica....which works very well.

I have only one sil-pat left after my darn kids used two of them as a cutting board! I even have one that is small enough to fit in my toaster oven; that's the one that gets the most use.

I've never used them for rolling out dough, I alway use wax paper. I'll have to try the sil-pat next time. I just never thought of it, so thanks!

AM

I bought my silpats at Surfa's Restaurant Supply in Culver City, and they sold the aluminum pans as well. However, I think the half-sheets are available now at Amazon. The smaller pan fits into my toaster oven, and so I use it quite frequently. To store them, I use pants hangers that have clips and hang them on my rack above the island.

Lars

I tried using a silpat for rolling pie pastry and made a huge mess:

It stuck like crazy, as you can see. I even draped the silpat over a container to try to peel it off, which I did, albeit in pieces.

So, if I have to flour the silpat to get the dough off, how do I benefit as opposed to just using the counter and flouring that lightly? I still have to add flour and I still have to clean up, so that was no simpler. I don't like to reroll dough, it makes it tough, so this was used as the bottom crust and simply "patched", since it didn't show anyway. I rolled the top crust on the counter and wrapped it around my pin, it handled beautifully and did not tear, so it wasn't the fault of the dough.

It's a true "silpat", not a cheap knockoff, so that's not why it stuck. I tried it because another poster was saying it could be rolled without adding more flour to make the dough tough. Or does everyone else dust the silpat with flour before using it to roll their pastry?

Annie

I have one silpat, just a little one, and I never ever use it for anything.

Annie, maybe you should get a "cheap knockoff" instead. Mine came from ALDI and in fact I just used it for rolling out some dough for bread sticks today! The dough just comes right off on mine.

AG, I also have a cheap knock off, it came from Walmart so I know it's cheap, LOL. It doesn't work any better for pie crust than the Silpat does.

I've used them to bake cookies and they work well, but for rolling out pastry, not so much.

I had a silicone bundt pan, it was a piece of carp, you couldn't get a cake out of it in one piece no matter what you did. I couldn't even give the darned thing away, even though I put it in the "free" box at a yard sale, it finally went to Goodwill. I have muffin pans that worked OK, but they are so flexible that they are hard to keep steady when full of batter but the Grandkids love them for mud pie making and forming layers of different colors when making soap.

Jessica got me a couple of "spoonulas" that I just love that are silicone, so some items are good for some things, but none are good for everything and some, like that bundt pan, seem to be good for absolutely nothing at all.

Elery has three and like Sherry, he never uses them for anything, he says they're a pain to clean and he hates 'em.

Actually, the best use I've found for a silpat is to line a baking sheet under my deep dish fruit pies. When they boil over, and they always do, the drippings go right onto the Silpat instead of burning onto the bottom of the oven. Since I do not have a self cleaning oven, this is important to me!

Annie

I have several brands of mats and find I use them for different things. I like to use my Silpat (11-1/2x16-1/2") for forming bread - no bench flour needed and less mess to clean and the dough doesn't stick to the mat, nor does the mat move around.

It's also the perfect size for patting out bread dough for making cinnamon rolls - cover the whole sheet with dough. Roll the dough up. When you are done the dough log will adjust to 12-inches and that makes it easy to cut the log into 12 1-inch rolls. Make a nick on the top of the dough log with a sharp knife every inch while using a 12-inch ruler as a guide, then cut with thin dental floss by drawing the floss under the dough log to the first 1-inch mark, criss-cross the floss on the top of the log and pull the floss through the dough log. Works like a charm.

If you want to make 24 mini-cinnamon rolls, pat the dough out on the Silpat and roll each end until it meets in the middle of the mat. "Cut" the dough where the logs meet using a hard plastic spatula or a hard plastic disposable knife so you don't risk cutting the mat. Cut the dough into 1-inch rolls using dental floss.

I line a rimmed baking sheet with a mat when I bake meatballs for easy clean-up.

I have a 10" octagon-shaped Silpat I like to use for rolling small items.

I also have a "World Cuisine" mat (made in France) which is thicker than a Silpat, and the one I like to use when making peanut brittle. I pour the hot brittle on it and when it's set it peels right off.

I've got a couple really thin and flimsy sheets (Tupperware) that are practically useless, mostly because they are so thin. I have a couple more I got from Aldi, but they haven't been used yet.

Oddly enough, I never bake cookies on them. I prefer parchment paper for that.

-Grainlady

I used my Silpat for cookies for a while, but found I much prefer parchment paper also. Love those packs of pre-cut pp from KA.

I store my Silpat in a paper towel tube. I lay a sheet of waxed paper over the Silpat first and then just roll it up.
Great way to store it without taking up much room.

I use both silicon sheets and parchment. The silicon is rolled up, secured with a rubber band, and put on an upper shelf in a lower, small cabinet that holds cutting blocks and muffin tins. This is the funny part .... the parchment sheets are in the pantry stored in a good sized hand-thrown clay pitcher I bought years ago. The pitcher has a big handle I can grab, it keeps the sheets from expanding, and the paper is covered with a big baggie so it doesn't get dust or other stuff on it. Convenient and it works!!

Hubby attached a hook on the inside of a cabinet door and I hang my silicon sheets and parchment paper on the hook using wooden clamp-style pant hangers, so they are all flat and ready-to-use.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: 9

Silpat baking sheets can join the long list of kitchen equipment I don't have or plan on buying. I use waxed paper for rolling out pie crust, parchment paper for baking cookies and a drip ring similar to one on the link below under my pie pans.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pie/casserole drip ring

I have the Aldi silpat and I use it for fondant cake decorating and bread making. It works great for those things. I've never even put mine in the oven lol. I use parchment for my cookies.

I bought 2 half-sheet pan sized Silpat mats when they first became popular - don't know how I survived without 'em. Now I own six in various sizes. They are really wonderful for making the Praline Chex mix!

Annie, "-----I tried using a silpat for rolling pie pastry and made a huge mess: ----- It stuck like crazy,---"

That is not because of adhesion of the dough to the Silpat.

In a classic physics experiment, if a drop of water is put between two small pieces of glass, you will not be able to pull the pieces apart. As a matter of fact, if you have two pieces of "Optically flat" glass, you don't even need the drop of water.

In the absence of air between two flat objects, there will be 14.7 lbs / square inch of atmospheric pressure forcing the objects together.

If your dough is 5" x 5", you will need more than 700 lbs of force to pull them apart all at once.

Think suction cup.

Otherwise, very few things can stick to silicone mats, not even epoxy. It's great to bake pie dough on , not to make pie dough on.

Notice also non-stick frying pan coating is textured, that is to create some air space between the cookware and the food.

dcarch

Tracey, when I first saw your picture, I thought there was a toupe in a plastic bag behind the chocolate roses. It took me a long time to see it as anything else!

I've not had pie dough stick to silpat, but I do put a small dusting of flour on the surface first. I used to use parchment and wax paper, and the dough would always stick to those. When I am lifting the pie dough from the silpat, I start one edge on the rolling pin to roll about half of the dough back onto the pin very loosely. I find it very easy to get the pie dough started on the rolling pin by lifting an edge of the silpat, and then the dough falls onto the rolling pin. I really love the silpat for how it helps me with pie dough, but I do think that it is icky to touch - it has a "prosthetic" feel to it that creeps me out a bit.

Lars

Cutting dough with dental floss and hanging stuff with pants hangers - two good tips - thanks Grainlady!

I don't have any silpat mats but I can imagine one would be great for making candy like drops or brittle. So rarely that I do, I don't think a mat is in the future for me, unless I ask Santa.

Didn't Tracey tell you before that she makes roses from toupe's? I thought we all knew that. LOLOLOLOL

Nancy

Love you Lars! You always make me smile. Don't you know when I posted that pic that I was thinking the bag of fondant looked kind of odd in the background:)

Tracey

LOL, Lars, now that you said that, it DOES look like a toupee!

Tracey, those are lovely roses, you are getting quite good!

Nancedar, I also smiled when I saw the cutting of dough with dental floss. A million years ago, in Home Ec, my teacher told me to cut cinnamon rolls with fishing line. I promptly went home and told Grandma and she tried it and promptly went right out and bought herself a roll of 25 lb. test, LOL. A couple of years later I mentioned dental floss and was flatly told that it was FAR too expensive to use to cut dough and that her roll of fishing line would last her for the rest of her life. I think it did!

dcarch, the problem with that explanation is that others have posted how they roll out dough on the silpat and it comes right off like a charm. Mine doesn't, so why does it work for them but not for me unless they dust with flour like Lars does?

Not that it matters, I've rolled pie dough on the counter for my whole life and it works fine, but I always like to see if I can find something faster, neater, better.

Of course, I can't get that microwaved corn to shake out of the husk either, and I can't flip a pancake in the pan without a spatula and I can't get the egg to separate with a water bottle, although others can make all those things work. I guess I'll stick with what works for me and as you can see from the picture, rolling pastry on a silpat sure isn't one of them!

I'll bet it would be great for no-bake cookies though....

Annie

I made the mistake of using my silicon mats for roasting veggies on, and I haven't been able to use them for anything else since, as they absorbed the odor of the onions and garlic and other veggies.

I used to use a big plastic cutting board for rolling out dough of any kind. I had to put a wet towel on the counter to hold it still. Now, however, I get to use the butcher block we found at an estate sale. It's perfect.

I use parchment paper for cookies and such, since I ruined my silpats. (I still use them for roasting, just not sweets.)

Sally

Annie,

All you need to do is dust the silpat with a little flour. It's the fat that causes it to stick, not the flour/water mix. A little bit of flour makes a layer between the pastry and the mat. The advantage of rolling out on the silpat is that you can turn the mat instead of picking up the dough or contorting yourself to roll in different directions. It may not be enough of a difference to you.

I can't roll pastry out on the mat without a light flour dusting. As you say, it sticks like crazy. The mat by itself has a slightly tacky feel. Yeast doughs don't stick, but they don't have nearly the fat content of a pie dough. You can also peel yeast dough away from a surface because of the high gluten.

I have a variety of silicon bakeware I was given. It is horrible stuff. Silicon is a very poor conductor of heat, and most of the bakeware is thin so it doesn't hold its shape well. Cakes come out in strange shapes, with pale tops because the sides don't radiate heat like metal or glass. I use the pans for suet cakes for the birds. It's the only purpose I can find for the junk.

Cheryl

Cheryl, I can also roll pastry if I use a dusting of flour, but other posters have specifically said they use the Silpat so they don't have to add any additional flour. That definitely did not work for me, so I'm glad to hear that yours sticks if you don't dust with flour, I was beginning to wonder how everyone else could do it and I couldn't!

If I have to use that dusting of flour, I'll just roll on the countertop, it's no more trouble to clean the countertop than it is the Silpat.

I agree, silicon bakeware is pretty much junk. I didn't think of suet cakes!

Annie

Whenever I use my mat, I spread a thin coating of crisco on it and it seems to have permanently imbedded in it. It helps with the sticking problem, especially with the fondant.

Tracey

Thanks, Tracey, I think that would work better than powdered sugar.

Annie

I am just starting to bake bread.
Never heard of silpak before this thread.
I like the French Bread pan also, anyone use it.

Sally2, that's exactly what I do too. I use it for roasting veggies. Hubby hates washing it, because it always feels greasy.

I too, couldn't make pie dough on mine, it stuck.

Yes, they do feel greasy, don't they? I used to scrub and scrub them, trying to get them clean, until I realized that they were supposed to feel that way. lol

Sally

"----Never heard of silpak before this thread. ---"

Silpat is the brand name.

Silicone bake mat is the general item name.

dcarch