Ice Cube Trays: Why Silicone Cracks and Plastic Trays Stick, and Which Lasts Longer

The short version

• If you want uniform round cubes for whiskey or cocktails and don’t need a lid, the like-it Ice Cube Tray “My Round Ice” gives you a fixed, compact mold shape.
• If you go through ice fast enough that one tray in the freezer isn’t enough, the BREMENT Ice Tray 2-Pack doubles your batch without doubling the wait between refills.
• If you want ice sized for narrow openings like water bottles or iced coffee tumblers, the Brement Silicone Ice Cube Tray is built around that specific use case.
• If avoiding stuck cubes matters more than a specific shape, the push-release mechanic on the BREMENT tray is worth weighing against a silicone twist or flex release.
• If freezer space is tight, a single-cavity rigid tray like the like-it generally stacks more predictably than a floppy silicone sheet.

What actually varies, and what doesn’t matter much

The real variable across these three products is how the mold releases ice, not whether the tray is “silicone” or “plastic” in the abstract. A rigid tray relies on a twist, flex-point, or push mechanism built into a hard shell; a silicone tray relies on the material itself deforming when you bend it. Buyers tend to fixate on which material sounds more premium, but the shape of the cavity and the thickness of the walls around it matter more for how long the tray holds up than the base material does. A thick-walled rigid tray and a well-reinforced silicone tray can both last; a thin rigid tray that cracks at a hinge and a thin silicone tray that tears at a seam fail for mirrored reasons. None of the three listings here specify wall thickness, so that’s a detail worth checking in person rather than assuming from marketing copy.

Comparison table

Product	Confirmed Material	Dimensions	Included Pieces	Color
like-it Ice Cube Tray “My Round Ice”	Not specified in listing	Approx. φ3.0 x H3.0 in (7.5 x 7.5 cm) per cavity	—	Black
BREMENT Ice Tray 2-Pack	Not specified in listing	—	2-Pack	—
Brement Silicone Ice Cube Tray	Silicone	—	—	—

like-it Ice Cube Tray “My Round Ice”

This tray is built around a single repeated cavity, roughly 3 inches across and 3 inches deep, producing round cubes sized for highball glasses or old-fashioned-style drinks rather than standard square cubes for a pitcher of water. A lid isn’t part of what’s listed, and that absence matters more than it might seem: with no stated cover, odor transfer in the freezer comes down to whatever container or bag you store the tray in alongside other frozen items. Release mechanism is another open question — the product page is silent on whether cubes twist free or need to be pried loose, so that’s something to judge in person rather than assume from the listing. This tray makes sense if what you’re after is a specific round shape for presentation and slow melt; a sealed, grab-and-go tray is a different priority, and that’s a feature worth confirming elsewhere.

BREMENT Ice Tray 2-Pack

The defining feature here, according to the listing title, is a “one push” release: pressing the tray is meant to pop cubes free rather than requiring a twist or a knock against the counter. Getting two trays in the pack is the practical selling point — it means you can keep one tray refilling while the other is in rotation, which matters more than material choice if your household goes through ice daily. Set against that convenience, two things go unanswered: what the trays are actually made of, and whether a lid comes included. Skip the material question and you’re also skipping any odor-protection guarantee, and how the push mechanism holds up after months of repeated use simply isn’t something a product listing can tell you in advance. Every press concentrates stress on the same hinge or flex zone, and it’s that repeated, localized bending — not the material underneath — that eventually produces a crack or a cavity that stops springing back into shape.

Brement Silicone Ice Cube Tray

This is the one product here with a confirmed material: silicone, and it’s marketed specifically for drinks and vessels with narrow openings — highballs, iced coffee, water bottles — meaning the cavities are sized smaller or narrower than a standard tray rather than optimized for maximum cube size. The advantage of silicone is flexibility: you can usually twist or flex the whole tray to release cubes without a mechanical hinge to wear out. That same flexibility cuts both ways, though. A silicone tray has no rigid frame to hold its shape, so filling it, carrying it to the freezer, and pulling it back out all risk spilling water unless you set it on something flat and stable. The narrow cavities this tray needs for bottle-sized ice also mean thin walls, and thin silicone is where a tear is most likely to start once repeated stretching wears down its margin for flexing.

How these usually fail

Rigid trays with a twist or push release tend to fail at the hinge or flex point first — the one spot designed to bend repeatedly eventually fatigues, and a tray that once twisted easily starts cracking or simply stops springing back into shape. Separately, rigid trays can fail by sticking rather than breaking: ice bonds to a hard surface through direct contact and thermal conductivity, and once the plastic surface picks up fine scratches from repeated use, there’s more surface area for ice to grip, making cubes harder to release than they were when the tray was new.

Silicone trays fail differently. The material itself resists cracking in the way rigid plastic does, but thin sections — particularly around small or narrow cavities — are prone to tearing after repeated stretching, especially if cubes are pried out before they’re fully frozen. Silicone is also more porous than rigid plastic at a molecular level, which is the reason this material is more commonly associated with absorbing freezer odors over long-term use, even when a lid is present at the time of purchase. Over a year of daily use, the realistic failure pattern is a rigid tray that cracks at its moving part or a silicone tray that tears at its thinnest wall — neither material is immune, they just fail at different points.

Before you buy

Measure your freezer’s shelf height and width before ordering a tray with a fixed cavity size like the like-it round mold — a 3-inch-deep cavity needs vertical clearance that a standard door shelf often doesn’t have. If you’re considering a push-release design like the BREMENT, check whether your hands can comfortably apply even pressure across the tray, since uneven pressure is what accelerates wear at the flex point. And if odor transfer is a concern in your freezer, don’t assume any of these three trays include a sealed lid — a cover isn’t confirmed for any of them, so plan on a separate airtight container or bag if your freezer holds strong-smelling items nearby.