If you talk to the manufacturers they'll say not to use the silicone, but, really, you can. OTOH, I think cleaning the glass is easier than cleaning a silicone mat. The two advantages that the silicone really give you are friction--your pot won't slide around while you stir, and protection from crystals, if you tend to spill salt and sugar a lot. My silicone baking mats say specifically not to put them in the dishwasher and it's very hard to get the last little grains of flour off of them.

The really good part is spreading newspaper or paper bags while you're frying and just throwing them away. :)

I vaguely recall we're not s'pozed to cut silicon mats to size (from where I recall this, I've no idea). Not clear how much its because they want us buying more little mats, or if there's a legitimate concern about cut edges unraveling, or leaking or something.

Silicone mats that embed fiberglass fibers might be poor candidates for cutting, but regular sheet silicone is normally cut to fit whatever it is being used for, and has been in aerospace for decades. Neatness in cutting may be elusive due to the flexibility; typically dies are used when clean circular cuts are needed.

I still have a task to cut the pads we use to fit the hob circles on our induction cooktop. I also intend to use the remnants as pan supports. Three smaller pads should work fine to support pans with reasonably flat bases.

However, a tenth of an inch is pretty thick. Typically thinner sheets are sold for this purpose. If I had time for it right now I'd measure ours, but my guess is that they are closer to 0.062 than 0.10. The field should reach through a tenth of an inch, though, easily enough.

kas

Someone here a few years ago used a Silpat all the time on her induction cooktop. And then it decomposed and she had a mess that wouldn't come up well. I don't know if that's relevant or even what Silpats are made of, buuuuuuut.....

Thanks all for your thoughts! (: