For this project I’m going to show you how to take homemade treats to the next level,
by making your own silicone candy molds, at home.
To start this project we’re going to need some LEGO.
I went to a local store and picked out a bunch of random pieces for around $9, but the stuff
you’ve got lying around your house will work just as well.
You’re also going to need a baseplate for holding the bricks in place, and if you want
to copy the style of my mold, then you’ll need 4 1x1 bricks (maroon), 9 1x2s (blue),
15 2x2s (green), 2 1x3s (grey), 4 2x4s (yellow), 4 1x4s (black), and 6 2x4 bricks.
Oh yeah, and you’re going to need another 46 2x4s so you can start building a retaining wall 2 layers tall.
The baseplate I got is 32 studs wide by 32 studs across, and if you start with one of
the 2x4s and press it into place leaving 4 nubs exposed on the bottom and 3 nubs exposed
on the side, then everything else should come together perfectly.
Continue laying the big bricks down in a straight line until you get within 4 stubs of the end, then turn left.
You’ll want to keep placing more bricks until you’ve formed a square, then move
up one layer so you can do the same thing on top, but this time, overlapping the bricks so they’re staggered.
Ok our retaining wall is looking pretty good, so let’s move on to filling the inside with
whatever LEGO shapes we want our candies to look like.
I decided to keep my mold relatively simple by arranging the bricks in a way that optimizes
the space and keeps it as user friendly as possible. But you can get really creative
and make your mold any shape or size you want to.
Whatever you choose it’s important to make sure everything is pressed down and compacted
tightly enough, so that it minimizes any gaps between the pieces.
Ok with all these pieces pressed firmly into place our LEGO candy mold is optimized and
ready to be cast with silicone, so let’s move on to doing that next.
Now I cast my rubber candy molds with a 1lb kit of general purpose silicone I got from
a local special effects supply company.
If you don’t have anything like that nearby, or just prefer to use food grade silicone
instead, then check the video description for a link on where you can find a 2lb kit for about the same price.
Opening up the big container you can see it's full of a white silicone goop, that has the consistency of wood glue.
Ok, now let’s dump the entire contents of the second bottle into the mix and be prepared
to work relatively quickly, because once these two substances mix together, you only get
around 30 minutes of work time before the silicone starts setting up.
This second liquid is a catalyst that’ll help get the silicone hardening, and it’s
bright blue so we can tell when the two substances are thoroughly mixed together.
The idea here is to to keep folding the 2 parts together until the color is completely
uniform. And as soon as it is, I recommend transferring the mix to a second paper bowl,
and double-checking that nothing got missed accidentally.
Alright you can see our mix is blended really well at this point, and if we had access to
a vacuum chamber, this would be the time to suck all the air bubbles out so we could get the best results.
But I don’t have a vacuum chamber and you probably don’t either, so let’s just skip
that part and pour the silicone goop directly into the center of our mold instead.
This stuff is about the same consistency as processed honey, so as it dribbles straight
down into the center of the mold, the liquid naturally begins flowing in to fill all the spaces below.
As the silicone slowly spreads out, it gently pushes any air out of the bottom, which is
really important for making the finished product look nice.
At this point we’ve got the entire one-pound mix of silicone poured into the mold, and
all that’s left to do is just give the mold a little wiggle to encourage any loose air
bubbles to rise to the top, then leave it out to set for about 24 hours.
When you come back the next day, your silicone will probably look exactly the same, but this
time, instead of being sticky and gooey like it was before, you’ll find it feels strangely
hard and rubbery, which is exactly what you want.
Let’s go ahead and take it out, and clean it up a bit.
Start by gently prying the entire LEGO mold upward, and let the rubber release from the
baseplate at whatever pace it needs to.
When it finally detaches, take a look underneath and you should see all the LEGO pieces stuck
inside, and completely encapsulated by rubber. How cool is that?
Go ahead and break the retaining wall off from around the sides, then pick the bricks
out of the center, to reveal, your brand new candy mold creation.
Now there will probably be some areas where the silicone seeped in between the cracks
a bit, but that’s not a big deal at all.
Just grab the rubber tags with your fingers and give them a quick tug rip them off.
It doesn’t take much effort, and after about 5 minutes of tidying up, you should have yourself
a very clean, and very professional looking LEGO candy mold.
These custom candy molds are fun and rubbery, extremely stretchy, and very durable.
And if you look closely, you can see how the silicone captures every minute detail perfectly,
which means your candies will come out looking exactly like the real thing.
The silicone molds are dishwasher safe and can be cleaned really easily just by running hot water over them.
And not only will they make a mountain of gummy candies like the ones I showed you in
a previous video, but they’ll cast chocolates as well.
Now some people might wonder if it’s ok to use general purpose silicone for casting
candies, and with the stuff I’m using it’s just fine because casting silicone is inert
and impressively non-reactive.
You could probably eat pieces of the mold itself and be just fine. But if you have any
concerns at all, just make yours with “food grade” silicone instead.
I found this 2lb kit online for about the same price, and I’ll put a link in the description
to where you can find it.
One pound of silicone makes one LEGO mold like this, so a two-pound kit will make two of them.
But if you want to try playing around and experimenting a bit, you can cast just about
anything you can think of.
I made a mini LEGO mold for my kids to play with, and another mold for casting custom
chocolate bars, which I’ll show you how to make in another project video.
Well now you know how to use LEGO bricks and a 2 part silicone mix, to create custom silicone candy molds at home.
That’s it for now. If you liked this project, perhaps you’ll like some of my others.
Check them out at www.thekingofrandom.com