Kitchen Tools: Oven Liners
Kitchen Tools: Oven Liners
There’s a huge world of kitchen tools that claim to make your life in the kitchen easier and cleaner. Any store you’re browsing through will have products you’ve never heard of, claiming to be the one and only thing your kitchen needs. Somehow, none of these things are products I ever search for, and are always purchases made when I see them and go, “Huh. Yeah. Maybe that’d be nice. Let’s see if it works,” which is what I’ve been doing more often so you don’t have to!
These oven liners are silicone mats that you place in your oven to collect spills when you’re baking or cooking. These particular ones I’ve explored encourage you to cut them to size with scissors so they can fit perfectly in whatever oven you may have, they’re dishwasher-friendly, and are 100% certified BPA and PFOA free food grade teflon (no toxins!).
The placement of your oven’s heating element will determine where these are placed. This is the most important part - make sure you read over the directions closely! You’ll place them either on the bottom of the oven or on a rack above the bottom. Consult the directions, and if you’re not sure what kind of oven you have, just google your oven type and number.
Once you’ve determined placement, cut to size. You don’t want it touching the side, so cut slightly smaller. When you’re planning to bake anything that might bubble or spill over - pies, cakes, breads, etc. - just place it inside. If something does spill over, just wait for it to cool, take out the mat, and peel it off! I’ve never had anything stick to it that I couldn’t quickly throw in the trash.
These oven liners were incredibly controversial over on my TikTok , but I think a lot of it stemmed from people wanting to find an issue and not having all the information. It is the internet, after all. The two things that were brought up the most:
Your oven won’t work properly with the mat inside.
This just isn’t true - as long as you follow the instructions for your oven placement you’ll be fine. Many people saw what I did, and because they don’t have the same oven, assumed I was doing it wrong.
The fumes will kill you.
If this is truly a worry of yours, read into the information from the company and product. As stated above, it’s food grade teflon, certified BPA and PFOA free, which are the chemicals people are worrying about.
I found these just made my life easier - for once, a kitchen item that felt worth the money. You can reuse it, you don’t have to spend a long time with elbow-grease scrubbing your oven, and it’s cheap enough that I wasn’t worrying about whether it would work or not. So from someone that spends most of her day in the kitchen, I can say I actually am really into these! Final reminder though, if you decide to try them, please read the instructions thoroughly - which should be done for any kitchen tool you’re unfamiliar with.
After you buy them, try out some of my recipes below so you can start to use them!
Brownies - They souffle to make a perfect texture for the top, but they can be anxiety inducing to watch bake if you don’t have one of these mats!
Pumpkin Quick Bread - Maybe you only have a loaf pan one size smaller but you want to try it out anyways!
Cupcakes - If you overfill the cups, you won’t have any issues!
Let me know if you try these - I’d love to hear your thoughts, too!
