Customer Reviews

Tovolo Perfect Cube Ice Tray, Set of 2, Dark Blue

5 star:		(417)
4 star:		(134)
3 star:		(64)
2 star:		(52)
1 star:		(117)

 

 

I was surprised to see the reviews here.

* I don't taste 'rubber' from these.
* I do think the other points are fairly valid.

However, I still think these are really cool. Granted, they are not firm (no silicon is) so you have to hold them carefully after filling and put them on a flat surface in the freezer. Granted, silicon is not a slippery surface, so you can't push-slide them anywhere. Granted, they hold the cubes pretty well, so I twist it a couple times then tend to use my finger to push up on the bottom of the cubes I want to come out.

But on the other hand,
* They fit more ice cubes into a smaller space in my freezer.
* They are a better shape IMO.
* Unlike normal trays, they don't dump a dozen ice cubes everywhere when I just want a few out for a drink. I can push out what I want and put the tray back. So I consider this 'a feature not a bug'.

Now, if you have a need to very quickly use many trays of ice, so you need to be able to grab something, twist, get a shower of cubes, and move on, then this is NOT the ice cube tray for you.

But if you often use only some of the tray, and if freezer space is a premium, and if your fingers to push up on the bottom of a cube or pull it out are not crippled, then I think this is a great ice cube tray.

I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars because some of the points people made are valid. It's simply that some of them are not any problem with the product, they are merely a factor of what the product inherently is, e.g., that it is not firm, that it will not 'slide', that all the cubes don't just fall out with a twist -- these are issues of silicon (or the literal cube shape rather than slightly slanted sides), which means it's a 'given' for the product, not a fault, just personal preference about this "kind" of product/feature.

If you want the cube shape, you get the "they don't all fall out at once". If you want the silicon, you get the "doesn't slide" and "isn't rigid". If you don't want those features, well don't buy this ice cube tray, and you'd have no complaints. I actually wanted them, so I think it's a good product.

This item has nearly as many bad reviews as good reviews, and the simple reason is that half the people were expecting a traditional plastic made stiff and brittle ice tray that would crack in three months.

This ice tray is made of flexible material. The pro is that you can push out one cube at a time without splattering you counter top with a dozen of them. The con is that you can't get all the cubes out at once even if you want. Again, the pro is that it won't crack ever: it can be cut with a knife but can't possibly be cracked. The con is that you have to be careful when filling in the cubes all at a time ere you splash out the water from this flexible tray.

Now that you know what it is, buy it if you think you need it, as I did and am happy with it.

I bought these trays because silicone is one of the least toxic materials for food handling and because each cube is one ounce, which makes measuring my baby's food easy.

I absolutely love them. It's a little work (maybe one minute) to get all the cubes out, but not difficult at all. They freeze quickly - i haven't stacked them on top of one another though.

The only small complaint i have is they are obviously porous, and it takes a good scrubbing to remove the smell of whatever food I last froze in the tray.

However, I think this is the perfect, fairly inexpensive, baby food freezer tray (the other non-BPA etc. versions are way more expensive).

I bought 3 of these after seeing them highly praised in Felten's cocktail book "How's Your Drink?". Because my tap water has lots of minerals, I make ice cubes with distilled water & store them in ziplock bags in the freezer; works well.

However I also store the trays in the freezer; after 6 months the trays started to smell BAD, an ugly freezer funk of a musty smell. I found lots of purported remedies on the net, and tried them all. The bad news is, most of them didn't work. But one of them did.

What didn't get the smell out: immersing the tray in white vinegar for 3 days. Other things that didn't work: baking soda (either dry or with water), Simple Green, Joy liquid, Orange Oil cleaner, running 5 cycles in the dishwasher, Oxi-Clean, Clorox. I went a little nuts and also tried immersing 24 hours in Newman's Own Lemonade (did nothing), pineapple juice (helped a little), tomato juice (helped a little more), and orange juice (did nothing). As you can tell, I spent excessive amounts of money and time, stubbornly trying everything I could think of. Foolishly, even.

But one thing did get the smell out completely (and cheaply): dry out the ice tray, put it in a ziplock bag, fill with cheap kitty litter (!), seal bag, and wait 3 days. Poof, odor COMPLETELY eliminated. I bought litter that was on sale at the supermarket: Jonny Cat, $2.50 for a 10 lb bag. Not the fancy stuff at the pet store that costs 4X more. To neutralize 3 trays in 3 separate zip bags used less than half of the 10lbs of litter.

After the kitty litter, I hand-washed the trays thoroughly and then ran them through the dishwasher. Perfect! Odor-free and ready for duty. I learned my lesson: DON'T store the ice cube trays in the freezer.

Like most of the negative reviewers of this product, I'm giving this ice cube tray a 1-star rating because of the terrible flavor it imparts to ice cubes. At first I thought it was just because the tray was new and hadn't been cleaned well. I was wrong. After cleaning it countless times, running it through the dishwasher, soaking it, etc, the ice still has the same plastic/chemical taste it did on the first day. Sure, it's easy to use and the shapes are nice, but that doesn't mean anything if the ice is inedible.

What I find most interesting are the reviewers who don't detect any off flavors. This makes me wonder if 1) some people just don't detect this flavor/smell or if the people who do are just hypersensitive to the compound causing the odors (maybe something similar to the biological basis of cilantro tasting like soap to some people), and 2) whether variations in the manufacturing process or sites may be involved.

Either way, be warned that you may detect plastic/chemical flavors from ice made in here. For whatever reason, some people do, and some don't; but if you do, don't expect it to go away with time or after cleaning.

I bought my Tovolo ice cube trays last year to replace some cheap plastic trays which barely lasted six months. I decided to fork out three times as much as the next-most expensive tray sold for believing that I was paying more for quality and function. I was happy with the product at first, but the trays began to develop a distinctive chemical odor. I tried cleaning the trays in several different ways (dish soap, vinegar, and ultimately bleach), but nothing was able to eliminate the smell, which was very unfortunate because the ice cubes picked up the smell and flavor of the silicone. I am now using Rubbermaid trays which, while not as sturdy as the Tovolo trays, create ice cubes that don't make my drinks taste yucky.

Length:: 2:58 Mins

After using the silicone tray for a while,it started to give a VERY bad smell/taste to the ice. The tray itself smells like chemicals/rubber very bad. I put it through the dishwasher many times, it's not that. I am treating it as a HEALTH HAZARD because the smell transfers to the ice.

In the video I will be looking at how easy this tray is to empty of ice and refill with water.

First, I'm taking ice out of the silicone tray and compare it with a normal plastic tray. The silicone tray is harder to empty.

Next, I'm refilling the trays with water, and conclude that the silicone tray is more trouble to fill up.

Conclusion: Although silicone poses no health risks associated with freezing plastics, this tray is a pain to empty and refill. If you have to do this often or have kids with small hands, you may want to look for other options.

Thanks!

In the course of preparing to make our son's baby food, I did a LOT of research on the resources available to parents that want to make their baby's food, themselves.

The Background/reasoning that helped in the decision-making process: My wife and I wanted to cook in bulk, freeze the food as cubes, then store the frozen cubes in zip-locs. We wanted to have 1-ounce cubes so we could easily mix-and-match flavors and ingredients, while easily scaling serving sizes to a growing boy.

I'll list why I think these trays are the best available for freezing baby food.
1. Price: Other brands and styles are laughably overpriced ($20/tray?), especially considering the fact that you're not going to simply make 6 ounces of food at a go. Even compared to the other colors of this same style, pink was the least expensive. Why let color get in the way of making baby food?
2. Construction, style, size: Though there's no air-space between each cell, like with some other brands/styles, the food always froze quickly. No gaps also meant more food per tray, compared to other styles, so less trays would be needed (saving money and freezer-space). Each cube holds an ounce of food. We didn't want to fiddle-fart around with .75- or 1.25-ounce cubes, so these were perfect for us. It was VERY easy to pop out the frozen cubes.

We bought 4 trays, as 60-ounce batches were easy to manage, and each batch of food would stay fresh in the freezer in its own bag. Example: We'd freeze pureed roasted broccoli one night; freeze pureed, grilled spiced zucchini the next; freeze oatmeal made with breast milk the next night; and freeze pureed, sauteed spinach with tomatoes and garlic the last night. I'd fill the trays to the top, then cover them with plastic wrap or foil, and freeze overnight. Working this way, we usually only had to cook his food once a month.

I'll say it again: These were perfect for us.

**EDIT - 3-25-11
1. I noticed that some reviewers stated that the cubes are hard to remove. I can see how these trays could be frustrating. When popping out our son's frozen food, I would hold the tray horizontally, with the top facing away from me. Using my thumbs, I would push the cubes out from the back, starting on the cubes in the CENTER of the tray and working my way to the outside. Once some cubes are out, it seemed easier to remove the rest. Before I found my groove, I would have numb fingers before a third of the cubes were even out of the tray.

2. I never noticed a chemical smell/taste (I always tasted my son's food each time we fed him to ensure that it still tasted fresh and had no off-flavors or smells; I'm really sensitive to chemical-ish flavors, etc.), BUT I washed the everlovin' crap out of the trays before we used them. I washed them by hand, and then ran them through the dishwasher 3 or four times before they had any food in them. Check to see if it's your soap, too: I noticed that some of my silicone stuff would smell different if it had been washed at somebody else's house and/or had been scrubbed with only the rough side of a sponge (I always finish with the smooth side, as it seems to clean the silicone much better, for some reason)...

I purchased Tovolo silicone ice cube trays for one reason, I was tired of sticking, cracking, broken ice cubes. Knowing if I bought the same old things, they too would at sometime get old and become useless. So I went looking for something better. Then I found Tovolo silicone trays. These trays are not perfect, but they do work. The square (yes, square) ice cubes come out perfect everytime; so far. They also seem denser, if thats possible. The square shape makes the cube last longer in you beverage. Mostlikely because they melt more evenly than normal cubes. The slight drawback are you have to push out each cube. There is no "twist and empty" action. But the only real drawback is their soft and flimzy. You need two hands to FILL & TRANSPORT them to a flat surface in your freezer. I'll deal with that!!

Larry

Allentown, Pa.

These ice cubes were really great for about 3 months. Then they started emitting a terribly toxic, plastic smell that couldn't be washed off and permeated the ice cubes. I'm very disappointed.