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There are an unusual number of silicone experts at my workplace so I asked one of them if my dream of using silicone ice trays to produce brownie-fists was reasonable.  Turns out the answer is a qualified “yes”.

Coworker: Silicone is silicone.  If it’s a true silicone ice cube tray it’ll take several hundred degrees C without a problem.
Me: What do you mean “true silicone”?
Coworker: Well, some just use a silicone backbone, so they’d have a low melting point.
Me: I think I’ve dealt with that before.
Coworker:  What are you trying to do?
Me: Trying to create a silicone tray to make single server brownies.
Coworker: We could make our own.  I asked Dow for some sample silicone and they sent me 70 kilos that’s body-safe.  We’d just need a sample shape.

I’ve been avoiding learning our CAD design, rapid prototyping and thermal simulation software.  I think I now have a reason to.

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I don’t watch much television, so when I do (I was baking), all the commercials are new to me.  Observations:

  • Why is Thor in The Hulk vs. Thor cartoon speaking Medieval English rather than either Middle English or contemporary English?  The guy he inhabits was born in the 60s and Thor was last worshipped around 1200.
  • Buzz Ballads offers RUSH delivery.  I suppose for a small fee it’s dropped off by Geddy Lee.
  • The latest issue of Reader’s Digest has “Secret Tips to a Healthy Heart”, I’ve read them, I can’t wait to cash in as a cardiologist dispensing “10 Life Extending Facts That’d Be Immediately Obvious to a Faulknerian Idiot Man-Child Raised by Tak-!Sung Tribesmen”
  • I was so thunderstruck by the idiocy of the Cash 4 Gold commercial (does anyone notice that the foundry worker is covered in prison tattoos?) that I missed our dog Max eating one of my silicone baking mats.  I’ve heard chocolate can kill dogs, how about silicone?  It certainly didn’t hurt my brother.
  • There are over 200 types of dwarfism.

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I make french toast in two phases: first I sear them on a griddle then I bake them, thus the outside is crunchy and the inside is creamy.  I’ve seen silicone baking sheets advertised like all hell during Christmas so I decided to my silicone cutting board as one and see if the food didn’t stick.  So, I placed the seared toast on a baking sheet on top of the cutting board and popped it in the oven.  After 5 minutes I pulled it out to find my toast floating on molten silicone.  Thinking I’d lost a cutting board and baking mat, as it cooled I heard a popping noise.  It was the cutting board solidifying and I quickly extracted the toast which didn’t appear to have any silicone on it.  I now had a resolidified cutting board with 5 toast-shaped dents in it that came off in one piece.  I tried a piece of the toast and it tasted….. rubbery.  Not wanted to waste the toast I wrapped them in aluminum foil and wrote in Black Sharpie “Toast for Ryan”.  Don’t tell him.

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I make french toast in two phases: first I sear them on a griddle then I bake them, thus the outside is crunchy and the inside is creamy.  I’ve seen silicone baking sheets advertised like all hell during Christmas so I decided to my silicone cutting board as one and see if the food didn’t stick.  So, I placed the seared toast on a baking sheet on top of the cutting board and popped it in the oven.  After 5 minutes I pulled it out to find my toast floating on molten silicone.  Thinking I’d lost a cutting board and baking mat, as it cooled I heard a popping noise.  It was the cutting board solidifying and I quickly extracted the toast which didn’t appear to have any silicone on it.  I now had a resolidified cutting board with 5 toast-shaped dents in it that came off in one piece.  I tried a piece of the toast and it tasted….. rubbery.  Not wanted to waste the toast I wrapped them in aluminum foil and wrote in Black Sharpie “Toast for Ryan”.  Don’t tell him.