How to Clean Springerle Molds
by House on the Hill
So you’ve made a few batches of pressed cookies and they are safely drying on the dining room table. The work is not over. It’s time to clean your cookie molds. You want to treat both original wood carvings and resin/wood molds just as you would any fine wood product.Read on. Of course it is easier to clean them right after use, but I’ll give you some tips in case you let the dough dry into the corners of the carving too.
Start by preparing a bowl of warm soapy water and collecting some terrycloth towels and a mushroom brush. The mushroom brush is a soft bristled brush that has enough surface area to clean more square inches at a time, but you can also use a soft bristled toothbrush. Just make sure it’s soft so you don’t scratch the surface of your cookie mold. NEVER soak the molds in the water.
Dip the brush into the soapy water. Gently, but thoroughly scrub the floury mold with the brush. Turn the mold in all four directions to get into the carving at different angles. Keep scrubbing until you think you have gotten every crevice.
Do the same for larger and/or multiple image molds. You will just have more surface area to scrub.
Rinse the cookie mold under warm running water. Remember DO NOT SOAK the molds. Over exposure to water will soften the finish on the mold, just as it would on your wooden furniture.
Now check for stubborn spots of dough you may have missed. Or you may have cookie molds that have dried dough in them from previous use. Drip a drop of water on the spot, let it soften for a minute.
With a round wooden toothpick, gently pick out the dough. Do not use flat toothpicks (they splinter easily) or metal tools such as skewers or needles (they scratch the surface of the molds). Repeat the drop of water again if needed. Repeat gentle scrubbing and rinsing until the mold is clean.
Pat the rinsed mold with a terrycloth towel being sure to push into the deep parts of the carving. I use cotton terrycloth shop cloths that I buy at a big box store.
Lay the clean molds on a dry terrycloth. You can put the terrycloth towel on a cooling rack for better air circulation, especially if you have many molds to dry and the weather is humid.
Let the molds dry completely. Overnight is good. You never want to store the molds with any moisture on them. If you store the molds in sealed bags or containers, any moisture remaining will harm the finish. I have many molds that I hang on my wall, and others that I store in bubble bags placed in plastic totes. However you store them, store them DRY.
Good care of your cookie molds will make them last years and removing dried dough from the recesses of the mold will yeild clearer cookie prints.
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