When I was recently asked by the German cookware site KuechenUndHaushalt.de if I would like to review a Lurch FlexiForm silicon baking mat, I jumped at the chance. I have been admiring these mats for a while, especially now that silicon products have had some time to evolve and work out their kinks. About 5 years ago, I bought some cheap silicon baking pans from Tchibo and I really didn’t like them much. I had to bake my bread almost twice as long until it was fully done and unfortunately the outside was then very crispy. Someone told me that the pans must be inferior and I eventually chucked them without ever giving them a second chance. But as you can imagine, a lot has changed in 5 years.

I think the principle of a silicon baking mat is fantastic. I like to bake cookies and lots of other goodies on baking trays but find throwing away tons of the paper baking foil rather wasteful. Once it gets moist from steam or heat, it’s pretty much done for so you can’t really reuse it either. But I love that it protects the trays and you never need to scrape cookies off a baking tray ever again.

I tested the mat with a batch of chocolate chocolate chunk cookies, baking half of the cookies with the mat and the other half on regular baking foil (both on a tray). I was  rather surprised that both batches came out with exactly the same doneness. Which in my books equals absolute success. I rarely even achieve that when I’m baking cookies on the same tray without anything fancy.

This particular Lurch baking mat (I chuckle every time I say that company’s name — did they never see the Addams family??) is made of 100% platinum silicon and has a 15 year guarantee. It’s very easy to clean: just wash it with a sponge, soap and water, rinse and you can shake most of the water off of it if you need it dry again quickly. And you can even put it in your dishwasher but I doubt I will since I hate when my machine melts things. It’s safe to use in the microwave, in the freezer (to -60°C/-76°F) and at temperatures of up to 260°C/500°F in the oven. That means you could even stick it under a pizza. Or maybe you just want to use it for rolling out dough for biscuits, etc. without making such a huge mess. Do be careful with knives or cutters around it though–that’s not recommended and I’m sure it would damage the mat.

You might notice the slight discolorations on the mat where the cookies were baked. According to the manufacturer, that is perfectly normal and is always going to happen. Kind of annoying but what can you do?

My final verdict, as you might have guessed, is complete happiness. I will definitely be using this mat a lot in the future and completely recommend cookie baking addicts to get a couple. Yes, a couple. I realized that one is just not enough for my kitchen since I usually only get about 9 cookies on one baking sheet but at least 36 cookies in a batch. The nice thing about the mat, though, is that you can just pull the mat off the tray (or just out of the oven because you don’t actually need a tray under it), cookies and all, and start your next batch on a new mat without fuss.

I’ve seen that they have silicon muffin cups now too but I’m not so sure how I would like that. Do you leave them on the muffins until you eat them or have to take them off when they cool?

Have you tried any silicon baking pans or mats yourself? What did you think of them?

**I received this Lurch FlexiForm silicon baking mat as a gift from www.KuechenUndHaushalt.de in exchange for a product review. My opinion of the product is completely my own and the review was in no way influenced by the fact that I got it for free.”