Welcome to our Culinary Art Education section!

Silicone molds can change the way you see the world and how you spend your valuable time. Unleash your creative potential with Tips & Tools, Educational Videos, and insightful Trend Articles. Don’t forget to peruse our photo collections, Pastry Postcards, featuring some of the most beautiful food in the world.

Welcome to Tips & Tools! Here you will find many casting tips and innovative tricks from the experts on casting with our food-contact safe silicone molds, a “make your own” mold making section with demos, articles and finally, helpful information on specialized mold making tools. Happy casting and mold making!

Nine different layouts for arrangement of silicone casting frames

Confectionery Casting Frames Layouts

Layouts of Confectionery Casting Frames™. Confectionery Casting Frames™ are adjustable forms that allow you to cast a variety of crisp, sharp-edged shapes. Each section is 10 inches long, 1 inch thick and has a .5 inch-wide rectangular channel for casting narrow bars. Please visit our online store for the Confectionery Casting Frame. A Jumble Box™ […]

cutting

Cutting Silicone Molds

Firm silicone lasts longer than soft silicone. However, it can be more difficult to remove a delicate casting from a firmer mold. If your casting are breaking when you try to remove them from the mold, stress relief cuts should be made. Properly placed cuts will help relieve pressure points without affecting the shape or detail of the casting […]

Silicone Molds Shaping Chocolate

Better tasting than modeling chocolate, couverture chocolate treated with a mixer allows the user to ‘cast’ it in molds or shape it by hand. Here is a demo of our silicone molds shaping chocolate into a variety of shapes and designs. with our food contact safe silicone molds, you are able to add a level of detail you […]

fondant

Silicone Molds & Fondant

Did you know that silicone molds and fondant are a match made in pastry heaven? Fondant comes in a variety of colors and now your designs can have a variety of shapes and details! Silicone molds provided that special flair for all of your decorating needs. Our Pastry Impressions’ molds are known for their exacting […]

casting sphere molds

Creative casting sphere molds

Both modern and classic, a sphere is a shape that is timeless. Useful for casting elements for showpieces, proving pivot points, as well as the creating an optical effect when cast in sugar, spheres are also welcome on the plate.

showpeel tutorials Chocolate cast oceana showpeels

Showpeel Tutorials

Showpeels are textured silicone mats, that enable you create impressive decorations in a matter of minutes. The results of collaboration between pastry talent Stéphane Tréand MOF and us, the 8.5 inch x 11 inch sized silicone mats can be used to add texture to sugar, chocolate, fondant and many other mediums.[…]

Mold Knife for cutting silicone molds

Using the Mold Knife

Mold making myth busted…you can cut your silicone. This cleverly designed professional mold making knife is used to cut molds into self-registering sections. Similar to creating a zip-lock with interlocking grooves, the pictures make it easier to understand. See for yourself.

Book Cover "Confectionery Art Casting - Silicone Mold Making for Pastry Chefs""

Silicone Mold Making Book: Confectionery Art Casting

Our silicone mold making book, Confectionery Art Casting – Silicone Mold Making for Pastry Chefs is the first of its kind; Starting with basic mold making skills and progressing up through advanced techniques, this book reveals how to make food grade and cost-effective non-food grade silicone molds. We teamed up with some of the best […]

Introducing Showstoppers, Build a Better Showpiece

Pastry Chef Stéphane Tréand MOF and the Chicago School of Mold Making have done it again. Given the warm welcome Showpeels recieved a few years ago, they teamed up once more to create a series of new silicone tools for making pastry displays. The new mats are called ShowStoppers.

Going for Gold Article

Going for Gold, while thinking green – Working with recycled silicone

Every two years, the World Pastry Team Championship brings together chefs from around the world to reach for the gold medal. While the chefs work on their showpieces, the audience watches with tense excitement to see the results of their artistry and innovations. As spectacular as the chefs’ five-foot tall chocolate and sugar sculptures are, there is another—equally compelling—story behind their creation. That story consists of the second team. It’s made up of sponsors, coaches, alternate chefs, assistants, managers, creatives…

silicone simplicity

Silicone Simplicity: Modern art with minimal effort

Some chefs have the ability to make things look easy. Pastry Chef Susan Notter is one of these people. She is among a growing number of pastry chefs being asked to provide an artistic bridge between classical hand skills and innovative new casting techniques. As a seasoned competitor, Susan knows judges want to see strength in hand skills such as pulled and blown sugar. She also recognizes that they want to be surprised with new designs and techniques…

From-Inspiration-to-Presentation: Calligraphy Transformation

Creative chefs are always looking for new designs to incorporate into their culinary artwork. While studying sculpture in art school, I learned that new ideas can often be found by looking into the past. When discussing showpiece design with chefs, I recommend they turn to calligraphy for inspiration. In fact, it doesn’t take long to find a Chinese or Japanese character whose composition has both exciting motion…

Rolling With Success

Sometimes, to stand out in the crowd, you have to make your own equipment. A select few chefs take naturally to this, while others believe they either do not have the time, or access to special construction tools or materials. In this demonstration, we will show you how a small amount of silicone, a sheet of textured wall paper and a trip to your local hardware store can result in a highly versatile textured rolling pin.

Amenity

Amenity On Demand

Recently, I visited Chef Stéphane Tréand to photograph him working on a variety of showpieces. During the photo shoot, I had to repeatedly ask him to slow down. His movements were so quick, it was difficult to get clean shots. Realizing my requests weren’t flagging his life long habits of speed and efficiency, I asked him, “What’s French for ‘slow down’?” Soon after, ‘Dus mo’ became the phrase for the day.

Sweet Fusion

Sweet Fusion

When encapsulation first made center stage, it was a breakthrough. Its continued pop-ularity is apparent with so many chefs eager to duplicate the effect. Competition after competition we see encapsulation get cleaner, yet not necessarily more innovative. Repeating a technique is valuable for day to day needs, but those expecting to score points with the judges must do more.

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Showpieces on the Fly-casting with silicone molds

When he saw Master Pastry Chef Stéphane Tréand, MOF had begun to use liquid silicone to draw on a silicone mat, Michael Joy knew he was onto something. Their collaboration combines Chef Tréand’s designs and Michael Joy’s mold making, the results are Showpeels™.

Textured Mats made easy

Mold making is the perfect process for chefs looking to create unique patterns and shapes not available to the public market. Textured mats are invaluable for adding flair to your pastry designs, and the good news is, they are simple to make. With the ever increasing demands pastry chefs face to be more creative with less time, this is a great technique to quickly enhance the surface of chocolate, sugar and fondant.

Cast Sugar Hologram Effect for the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie

Ever wanted to see how to Cast Sugar Hologram Effect? Anil Rohira, Patrice Caillot, and Dereck Poivier represented team USA at the Coupe du Monde in Paris (held January 2003). They received a Best of Show award for their sugar showpiece (for which we supplied a small but effective dragon mold). Stunning work, Gentlemen! Technique […]