START
MAKE YOUR OWN
SILICONE ICE POP MOLDS
Time: 1– 2 Hours (plus set time) Complexity: Moderate
You can make incredibly imaginative pop molds with food-safe silicone rubber. Silicone picks up detail as
faint as a fingerprint and is very flexible.
The process of making a silicone mold is easy. The liquid silicone is poured into a cup around an object,
and then it hardens into a flexible mold. When the object is taken out of the mold, the negative space that
it occupied makes a cavity for the pop mixture.
A silicone mold can be used over and over to create hundreds of ice pops. Molds can be made with multiple
cavities, and several objects can be cast in the same mold, as long as there is a
2" space between them.
1. CHOOSE A PATTERN OBJECT
The original object shape that will be made into
pops is called the master pattern. This pattern can
be any shape, such as a small toy or other found
object. Plastic or wood works best; glass and
ceramic objects will stick to the silicone and are
not practical for this purpose. You can also sculpt
characters or shapes out of clay, wax, or wood to
use as patterns. I use clay, which hardens so that
I can easily pull it out of the silicone and use it again.
Most manufactured hard plastic ice pop molds
are shaped with draft, which means they’re angled
slightly so you can pull the pops out easily. Consider
draft when choosing your master pattern. The flexibility of silicone can accommodate small undercuts
(grooves in the object), but master pattern objects
that exhibit at least some draft are easiest to mold.
The simplest objects to mold have a flat side, so
they’ll require only a 1-part mold. If there are holes
or negative spaces in the pattern, fill them with clay
so the liquid silicone won’t seep in.
