Muffin Tin Mondays and a Giveaway!

We've been on the hunt for muffin tins and supplies ever since our first Muffin Tin Monday meal. The girls really enjoyed it and I've been looking forward to participating again. Today's theme is Party/ Celebrate which is perfect because Julia's 2nd birthday was yesterday. We didn't get a chance to make her cupcakes so we did that today instead. I had planned to make them with her yesterday after nap, but Daddy decided we should take a trip out to the beach. The girls had an absolute blast at the beach and were more than happy to make cupcakes with me today instead.

Now, making muffins is NOT what Muffin Tin Mondays are about! But... seeing as its a party theme and I had some new silicone muffin cups to review for my blog, I figured this would work. I also thought all you MTMers might want to enter the giveaway.

I had never tried silicone bakeware of any kind before and was skeptical. However, in looking for a safe toxin free muffin tin, I didn't have many choices. All of the muffin tins I could find at the store were non-stick, meaning they include Teflon. I hate Teflon. (The fumes from cooking with non-stick cookware are known to kill small birds.) I also hate how it scratches off and I just can't see letting my kids eat off of it. I was unable to find a stainless steel muffin tin locally. (There is this one on amazon, but it would cost me $25 to get two of them.) In all of my research on plastics, I haven't come across any negatives about silicone. I decided to try the silicone baking cups and use those on top of our non stick muffin tins since I trust the silicone more than the Teflon.

Le Creuset makes silicone baking cups that are 100% silicone with no added plastics in them. They offered to send me two of the six cup packages for review. (and two more for giveaway... more about that later...) I received a package of bright blue and one of bright yellow. When I opened the package the baking cups seemed rather thin and flimsy. I tried to tear one of them and it held up; there is a bit of stretch to them so they don't rip. They did fit in the muffin tin nicely, even better than paper baking cups that end up flying all over the place as I'm trying to pour batter into them. We mixed up our cupcake batter and poured it into the cups. Here are my two helpers...

Like I said, I had never baked with silicone before, but I was pleased with how the cupcakes turned out. The baking cups peeled right off, even better than paper liners do. I tried one while it was still warm and it came out of the baking cup perfectly. They also washed up easily, much easier than my muffin tin does.

I normally try not to use the paper liners because I hate peeling them off of muffins, they always make a mess. There's also the paper waste of it all that I don't like. I usually end up trying to pry my muffins out of the pan and then of course have the yucky pan to clean up afterwards. I'm totally hooked now. No wasteful liners, no yucky pan to clean, no cooking spray, no broken muffins. The cupcakes also cooked nice and evenly with perfectly rounded tops- I'm not sure if that had to do with the silicone or not. I had planned to just use these for Muffin Tin Mondays, serving fun lunches to my girls in them, but I'm going to have to buy some more since I loved them for baking with so much. You actually don't even need to use a muffin tin, just place the cups on a cookie sheet and bake. They are oven, freezer, microwave, and dishwasher safe (although I'd think they would fly around the dishwasher and not come clean all the way).

Would you like some silicone baking cups of your own? Le Creuset is offering two of their six baking cup sets for giveaway. I'll choose two winners and each will receive one set. If you'd like to enter, please leave a comment and include your email address (or be sure that email is enabled on your blogger profile page). For an extra entry subscribe to my blog in one way or another and let me know that you did or already do in a separate post. This giveaway will close on September 1st at midnight.

We thoroughly enjoyed our cupcakes and will be back to celebrate Muffin Tin Mondays with an actual muffin tin lunch next time!

*Giveaway is now closed. Two winners have been contacted, thanks for your interest.*