I haven't used the muffin pans, but I have used the silicone bread pans.  They bake great, uniformly browned bread and are very easy to clean.  I wash them by hand (no inconvenience there – I wash all of my pans by hand) but the bread drops out so cleanly I suppose you could just wipe them out.  I can easily imagine silicone muffin liners would bake beautiful muffins.

The only thing I don't like about the bread pans is the loaf shape.  The directions that came with the pans say you can just set them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven.  But when I did that, the rising bread pushes the soft sides of the silicone pans out of shape.  I have also tried using the silicone pans as liners and putting them in a bread load pan.  That doesn't quite work either.  Using a regular pan the same size is just a trifle small and the baked bread is a bit malformed.  Using a bread pan a size up accomplishes nothing because it is too big to hold the silicone pan's shape. However, this probably wouldn't be an issue for muffins.

The first time I used the silicone pans, my stomach was tied in knots. It was so hard to believe the pans really weren't going to melt in the oven. And everything my brain had learned from college chemistry didn't convince my stomach one bit.  But it worked out just fine.  The only reason I have switched from the silicone pans back to metal pans is the shape issue.

I've been making meatloaf muffins for a long time now in the "texas-sized" muffin tins (I never bake muffins in 'em!) … not only did I love the portion size, but they near halved the time in the oven.  I haven't always found the meatloaf muffin to hold well enough to slice for sandwiches but I don't care if I build a sandwich with pieces vs. a tidy whole slice.  Excellent with chutney or relish, ummm … now I'm going to have to put that on the week's menu!

Oh, one other thing I like to use the larger muffin pans for is mini-quiches, ala single serving … or baked omelets or salmon cakes (don't like frying them).  And those perfect 1/4 cup scoops are my favorite for measuring scone batter onto the pan versus the round, scored cake …quick to oven, quick out of the oven.  I hadn't thought of freezing foodie hockey pucks in muffin pans for later storage.  I'm going to try that!

I'll join the hat rack club … I'm suddenly realizing that one could freeze single serving portions of stew and chili into those frozen muffin pucks to be thawed in ramkins for a quick dinner in the microwave.  A pause for "duh!".  We have occasions here when one of us is away for business, the home-alone mate has a tendency to eat over the sink.

Wait a minute, why would you want to make chili or stew in small portions?  Neither of those turn into the appropriate mouth joy unless its a crockpot load.  One bowl meals are always so much better the next day.  Aaand the next … okay, back to frozen portions.  As much as I love to cook, an instant dinner out of the freezer can be a godsend.  I don't own silicon muffin pans but am sure I can figure out how to use my metal ones.  Productive evening!