Use & Care / Troubleshooting


Use

Watch our How-To video for a helpful visual tutorial.

Artesão Cookie Molds are food-safe flexible silicone. Although oven-safe up to 450˚F, the dough is not intended to be baked in the mold.

       

  

Hint: You can make you cookies slimmer by squeezing in the sides of the mold before peeling off of the dough. 

Molds are dishwasher safe or hand-washable. Use a clean brush and dish soap to scrub the mold, cleaning out small details with toothpick or brush. Do not clean with knife or sharp object as this can damage the mold. Hand dry or let air dry before storing  

TROUBLESHOOTING

Use a recipe meant for cookie molding or your dough will spread and/or puff up and lose the detail of the mold's design. We offer recipes on our website for your convenience: the following troubleshooting hints are based on Susan's Favorite Recipe.

Dough loses detail when baking

  • The ratio of ingredients is off. Too much sugar or egg or not enough flour can alter your results. Try the recipe again, measuring precisely and weighing ingredients. Always follow the exact ingredient measurements, weigh them whenever possible, and don't substitute ingredients. This will avoid most problems.
  • Dough should not be sticky but a drier consistency, like Play-Doh. If sticky, add a little more flour, about a teaspoon at a time. Be aware that too much flour can cause cookies to crack, so check often to prevent over-drying. 
  • Humidity can wreak havoc with all stages of cookie molding by making the dough sticky and the design details of your mold very difficult to maintain during baking. If the humidity in your baking environment is very high you may want to wait till the weather is more conducive.
Note: Two game changers that pretty much guarantee consistently great results are weighing the recipe ingredients and using powdered whole eggs in place of regular eggs.These steps produce a very consistent dough that holds the molded details beautifully. Although powdered whole eggs can be a bit of an investment, it adds great ease to the process (especially when making numerous batches of Susan's Favorite Recipe) and they also have a long shelf life. There are various suppliers to choose from, but so far I've purchased mine online at Augason Farms (Amazon) and Honeyville Farms. Do not reconstitute the whole eggs before using in recipe. Add the powdered eggs with the dry ingredients and the water with the wet ingredients. 

    Dough Is Sticking To Mold

    • Dust mold cavity with powdered sugar or flour. Tap out excess before molding.
    • Dough can get overworked and softened by the heat of hands fairly quickly making it sticky. Use a fresh piece of dough and return softened piece to refrigerator to re-chill.
    • If all of the dough is too soft, return it to refrigerator to chill. Be aware of the effect the room temperature may be having on the dough.Take out only as much as you need for a few molds at time, keeping the rest chilled.
    • Put the mold in the freezer for 10 minutes or so to chill. (clean molds can be placed in a plastic bag and kept in freezer to chill for future use)
    • Keep dough in a covered bowl over an ice pack if not in refrigerator.
    • If dough is sticky even after it's been chilled, the Ingredients were not measured correctly or the environment is or was too humid when recipe was made. Try the recipe again measuring precisely and weighing ingredients. (Sticky dough will still taste good so, instead of throwing it away, form the dough into balls then roll the dough in sugar and bake.)
    • Humidity is your enemy and can make the dough sticky and difficult to work with. If you cannot control the humidity of your baking environment you may want to wait till the weather is more conducive.

       Dough Is Too Hard

    • Remove from refrigerator and let it sit out for a bit before using. Depending on room temperature it may take 5-20 minutes for dough to be pliable to your liking. As you mold you'll notice it will become less stiff and easier to work with. Room temperature and handling can quickly make it too soft (and stick in the crevices of the mold), so avoid leaving it out too long.

    Dough Is Too Crumbly

    • If the dough is crumbly there was most likely a misstep during the making of the recipe: the ingredient amounts were off, it wasn't mixed long enough (mix until dough starts pulling away from sides of the bowl), or too much flour was added. The dough may be able to be hand pressed together, but if too dry it's not viable for cookie molding. It should still taste good though and can be baked as regular cookies. 

    For those who might enjoy a shortcut, Susan’s Favorite Recipe is available in an Artesão Cookie Mix. It tastes like it's made from scratch. Just add butter and water!