Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Cold Molds the best tool to use in making frozen desserts?

Our molds were designed specifically for making ice cream molds — and by someone who was dissatisfied with the options of using metal forms or cheaper silicon baking utensils. You can read more details about the advantages of using Cold Molds here.

Can I purchase without using PayPal?

Yes, we completely understand those who don’t want to use PayPal to complete their order.

Just send us an email, listing the molds you want, and the EXACT shipping address you’d like us to ship to, or download our old-school order form, fill it out, scan it, and email it to us. We’ll generate an online invoice via Quickbooks, send it to your email address, and you can pay online using any major credit card.

If you’re a fan of the old US mail and paper checks, you can download our order form, fill it out and mail it to us with a check for the full amount. (Make sure to include the flat-rate shipping charge of $13.95.)

Can you show me how to use ColdMolds to make ice cream cakes?

Sure! There are many different techniques for making cakes. Some make their cakes using a single layer of all ice cream, some do a layer of ice cream and a layer of cake; others do one layer of ice cream on top of another, different flavor, and maybe a layer of fudge or crushed cookies between the layers..

Here’s a video shot by our friend Steve Christensen (a.k.a. “The Ice Cream Bloke”) on how we do it at our ice cream shop, so you can get an idea of how easy it is to use Cold Molds:

What is the best product to use to decorate ice cream cakes?

Another tough question to answer generally, as a lot depends on your particular customer base, what they expect on an ice cream cake, and on what products you have access to via your suppliers.

That said, we talk to many people in the ice cream cake business who ice their cakes using freshly made ice cream, or soft serve, or whipped cream, or even CoolWhip.

Personally, at my store, we use a pre-whipped non-dairy topping made by Flavor Right Foods (labeled as “Pre-Whipped Icing and Filling – Vanilla”). It comes frozen in a 15 lb container – roughly the size of a five-gallon bucket – and needs to be warmed to refrigeration temperatures before using. The same product is also available in cases of 16 one-pound pastry bags. Rich’s sells a similar product, which you may find at your local Restaurant Depot store.

For decorations, we prefer to use an imitation Buttercreme frosting, as we find that it holds the sharp decoration details better than the whipped topping. We use a shelf-stable (no refrigeration required) product made by Dawn, but many manufacturers (Karps, Murrays, probably a bunch more) produce similar products.

Do I need a “blast freezer” or “hardening freezer” to use Cold Molds?

Well, you don’t absolutely need a blast freezer to make ice cream cakes — whether you use Cold Molds or not. But having a blast freezer (one that quickly chills to -25 degrees F or better) helps make a better product, as getting the ice cream blank rock hard is the key to making it easy to release from the mold, as well as in keeping it from starting to melt as you’re trying to decorate it.

That said, plenty of our customers get by using a simple commercial freezer, with the thermostat turned down as low as it goes. If you can get your freezer down to -10 degrees F, you’ll have much better luck getting a clean release of the ice cream from the mold, and will have more time to decorate the cake before it starts melting.

How many servings can I get from your cake molds?

That’s a tough question to give a general answer to, as it depends on your serving size. You might be able to serve 12 preschool kids with a cake made from one of our 6” diameter, 3” tall molds, but 12 burly football players likely wouldn’t be happy!

But in general:

As a specific example, at my store our 6” diameter x 3″ tall cake weighs in at around 40 ounces (note that we’re talking weight here, not the ounces of volume listed in the table above!) So cutting one of these cakes into eight slices yields portions weighing 5-ounces each, which we find to be a good “average” serving size.

Where are your molds made?

Most of our molds are produced right here in the USA. Since the Covid pandemic, we’ve had trouble getting our domestic orders filled in a timely fashion, and have turned to having a couple of the more popular sizes made by larger international vendors that are less affected by labor shortages.

Do the materials used to make your molds contain PVC? Or Phthalate? Or BPA?

No, they don’t. Our molds are made from pure silicone rubber; the formulation contains none of those additives.

Your molds seem expensive — can’t you make them cheaper?

Our molds are a bit more expensive than most metal springform pans — but only in the purchase price! We’re confident that the long-term cost of ownership is less — sometimes considerably less — than that of metal pans.

How can that be? Consider:

• Each time you use a metal springform pan, you’ll find that it accumulates dings, dents, etc. Over time, the spring mechanism will loosen, break, or just fall off. Many of our customers who previously used metal pans report that they consider the lifespan of a metal mold as roughly one season.

• Properly cared for, your Cold Molds pans will look nearly as good as new year after year. I personally have molds that I originally bought in 2003, and they are nearly indistinguishable from the newer molds that I’ve purchased in the past year. So, long term, your Cold Molds will end up costing less, as you only have to pay for them once!

• Also, if you decorate your cakes, consider the “hidden cost” of your molds — Labor! When taking a frozen cake blank from a metal mold, you’ll normally have to return the blank to the freezer, as during the unmolding process a thin layer of ice cream will melt as you warm the pan to release the frozen product. If you try to apply decorations on top of that unfrozen, sloppy layer left on the surface, your decorations will tend to slide off, or just not look professional. When using one of our molds, you’ll find that the cake blank is immediately ready to frost & decorate, saving you the time of transferring them back to the freezer to wait for them to re-harden. (Also, consider the energy cost savings of not having to open and close your freezer door two more times to return the cake to the freezer, then take it back out!)

Back when I was a young hobbyist woodworker, a master wood crafter once advised me that I’d never regret investing in the best tools. I’ve always considered that excellent advice. If you want to be the best, invest in the best tools, and I’m 100% convinced that Cold Molds are the best tool for making professional-looking ice cream cakes and novelties.

Can I use my Cold Molds to bake in?

Absolutely! Our siliconized rubber is safe to use at oven temperatures (up to 550 degrees F). Many of our customers tell us that they bake a layer of cake or brownie in the bottom of their mold, then fill the top part with ice cream to create a distinctive dessert that their competition doesn’t offer.

Do you have any molds other than those shown on your website?

No, every product we produce is shown on the website.

Can I use my Cold Molds for products other than Ice Cream?

Certainly, we have several customers who report using our pop molds for making “Cheesecake on a Stick” novelties, and we’ve even had some tell us they’ve made “Jell-O Pops” or cakes with them. We even have some candle maker customers who use them to create non-edible wax decorations!

How long will my Cold Molds last?

We’re not sure exactly how long our molds will last, but anecdotally, we have cake molds that we’ve been using since around 2004 in nearly daily use, and they still look as good as new. Properly cared for, we expect that the molds will last through many seasons of use, though you will see them become a bit less stiff and more flexible over time.

How do I clean and care for my Cold Molds?

Clean your Cold Molds just like you would any food utensil. Wash it with dish soap, or put it in your dishwasher (make sure to properly secure it so that the spray from the dishwasher doesn’t wash the mold off the rack and onto the water heating element.) The same “softness” of our siliconized rubber that helps make your ice cream release easily also allows food particles to wash off cleanly.

Obviously, don’t use sharp knives or other utensils to remove your cake blanks from the mold, as you can cut or puncture the rubber.

At my store we’ve found that one of these dish brushes works well: Oxo Soap Brush

What are the sizes of your pop molds?

Our Large Pop Mold (CMP5210) is 5″ tall, by (approximately, it’s slightly tapered…) 1.75″ wide by 1″ deep, and holds 5 fluid ounces of product.

Our new Medium Pop Mold (CMP4210) is 4.125″ tall, by 1.75″ wide by 1″ deep, and holds roughly 4 fluid ounces of product.

Our Small Pop Mold (CMP3210) is 3″ tall, by 1.75″ wide by 1″ deep, and holds roughly 2.75 fluid ounces of product.

Our Cookie Disk Mold (CMC3200) is 3″ in diameter by 1″ deep and holds roughly 3.75 fluid ounces of product.

Which sticks will work with each of the sizes of your pop molds?

Our pop molds and Cookie Disk mold will only work with a standard popsicle stick — our HPC700 stick is ideal.

Previously, our Large Pop (CMP5210) was designed with a larger stick opening, designed to accommodate different types of sticks. Unfortunately, due to the larger stick opening, this Large Pop mold did NOT work well with very liquidy fillings, such as juice pops, as the filling would leak out around the stick. Due to this issue (and because we’ve come to realize that just about no one was using our large molds with different sized sticks…) we re-designed this mold in 2023 to have the same sized stick opening as our other pop molds.

What size bags should I use to package my pops?

This is a harder question to answer than it seems on the surface, as a lot depends upon how you’re going to seal your packaged pops.

There are three basic methods of packaging your pops for individual servings using our clear poly bags:

• Unsealed — just slip the bag over the pop, and leave the open end of the bag as is.

• Heat Sealed — Slip the bag over the pop, then use a heat sealer to make an air-tight seal, while trimming off any excess bag material. Generally, when using this method, you’ll want to seal the entire stick inside the bag.

• Tape Sealed — Slip the bag over the pop, then twist the bag opening tightly and use a tape sealer (or just a twist-tie) to hold the bag closed. You’ll need to decide if you want the tape to seal around the stick or below the stick.

If you’re not sealing, then the bag only needs to be long enough to cover the pop itself. You can leave the stick extended, or use a longer bag if you prefer to have the stick covered as well.

If you’re heat sealing, then you want the bag to be long enough to cover the pop and the part of the stick that extends below the pop — generally one to two inches. And you’ll need to add an extra half-inch or so to allow room for the heat sealer to seal and trim the end of the bag.

If you’re tape sealing, you want your bag to be an inch or so longer than either the pop itself (if you’re taping around the stick), or than the pop plus the extended stick (if you’re taping below the stick). You’ll need that extra inch of bag material to allow you to twist the bag and get the tape/twist tie on it.

So, as a general guideline, you can use:

* – indicates a tight fit — you may want to step up to a longer bag size.

What is the best chocolate dip to use to cover my pops?

Several manufacturers make very good products for dipping novelty bars. You want to find an “enrobing cover”. Kalva, Oringer, and Murray’s all make versions that our customers have reportedly been happy with.

You can even make your own dip, using high-quality chocolate and a little bit of coconut or vegetable oil. Mix them at roughly a 10:1 ratio (by weight) to start, then adjust that ratio up or down to achieve the viscosity that works best for dipping your products.

Which one is “the best” is a subjective opinion though, so “the best” thing for you to do is to try two or three, and choose the one that you think works well with your application and customer base!

Can you produce a custom mold for me?

In most cases, the answer is unfortunately “no”. We receive a lot of requests from folks asking for a mold with their logo or special design, who want to order “a huge number of molds — maybe as many as 10 or 20!”. Unfortunately, “10 or 20” molds is a tiny, tiny amount in the world of industrial material presses. The cost of tooling a new mold (the masters are cut out of steel) runs in the neighborhood of $3000 to $6000, making the development of a custom mold infeasible (or at least, not cost-effective.) In addition to the tooling costs, the factories that produce these don’t want to tie up their expensive industrial presses to make a small number of molds — they generally want us to commit to purchasing quantities in the thousands (and paid for up front…) before they’ll take us seriously.

That said, if you have an idea for a mold that you would like us to produce, and its design is such that it could appeal to a wide customer base, sure, talk to us. Maybe we’ll finance the design with the idea of adding it to our product list.

If you really want a custom mold for a low quantity application, you can try making it yourself. Check out WikiHow for some tips on how the process works.

Do you have plans for any additional molds?

YES! Definitely, we’re always looking to expand our product line, and want to eventually have a complete array of cake molds in all of the popular shapes and sizes.

If you want to influence our future designs, by all means, send us an email and let us know which molds you would buy if we had them available.

Why is the slot for the sticks on my large pop molds so wide?

Note: This question applies to our original “Large Pop” mold. It was redesigned in 2023 to address this issue.

The large pop molds were the first of our pop molds designed. At the time, we thought that having a larger opening would make stick insertion easier, and allow the use of other “handles”, such as the hard plastic handles used on some novelties.

Now that these have been in the field for a while, it’s obvious that the wide stick opening wasn’t the best design, as 99% of the time, folks use a traditional “Popsicle Stick” as the handle, and the wider opening makes it difficult to use the molds for more liquid fillers, such as for juice bars or popsicles.

We retooled our large pop mold in 2010 to include the smaller stick size, and to make it slightly smaller, holding around 4 fluid ounces of product. The new mold is now available as our “medium” pop mold. And for those who do wish to use the larger stick opening, we still make the original “large” pop mold with the larger stick opening and a 4.75 fluid ounce capacity. [ We retooled the large pop mold again in 2023 to increase its volume to an even 5.0 fluid ounces, and to change the stick opening to hold a standard popsicle stick. ]

What’s your return policy, in case I find these molds don’t work for my application?

As a food safety issue, we can’t take used molds back and resell them. So within 30 days of purchase, we’ll accept unused molds back and refund the full purchase price, you’ll just be responsible for any shipping costs. If you have used your molds, we’ll accept them back within 30 days of purchase and allow you to apply 75% of the purchase price towards another order. (Returned molds get contributed to some of the ice cream educational institutions around the country, to introduce new ice cream folks to Cold Molds products.)

If you’re not certain whether our molds will work for you, start small! Order one or two molds, try them out and see if they meet your needs. Our typical delivery time to US destinations is 2 to 4 days, so it won’t take long to get more molds once you see how easy they make your production work!

Do you ship Internationally?

Yes, we can definitely ship outside the USA, but shipping is expensive.  For typical orders (up to 10 molds) we ship US Postal Service, International Priority, which is the most cost-effective service.  The delivery times can be slow (up to 10 business days once the order is shipped), but in our experience, they’ve been very dependable.

Be aware that due to limits on PayPal’s shipping options, we charge a flat rate international shipping charge at checkout. This is an estimate only! We’ll determine the actual shipping charges and refund or invoice you for the difference.

We can ship using UPS or FedEx, but their shipping charges are typically five to ten times as expensive as US Postal Service’s International Priority rate.  If you want us to use one of those carriers, be aware that it might take longer to get the delivery underway, as we don’t typically ship with those carriers, so we need an extra day or so to schedule a pickup.

How quickly will you ship my order?

Most orders get shipped within 24 hours of being received.

Note though that if you were to order late in the day (Eastern Time) on a Friday, it’s possible that the order doesn’t actually ship until Monday. And, on occasion, we may need to retrieve stock from our backup warehouse before shipping, which could delay things by a day or so.

Also, since our main business is running an ice cream shop, our slow season is from November to March. We typically are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during those months, so we might not ship as quickly.  If you have a priority order during those months, email us to ask if we can get to the office to process your order more quickly!

Of course like most ice cream shops, during our spring and summer seasons (April through September-ish…) our shop can take up an enormous amount of time, and possibly shipping falls to the end of our ‘To Do’ list. We’ll do our best to get all orders out within a day or so.

If you truly are in a pickle, and need a fast turnaround, email us to ask if we can get your order out as quick as possible. We’ll do our best to prioritize your shipment. But we’ve all heard the quip: “A lack of planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part.” We’re a tiny company, and we’ll try our hardest to help get your order to you quickly. But be nice — we respond much better to polite pleas for help than to insistent demands for extraordinary efforts.