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Lisbet
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| Posted: Feb 05 2010 at 11:38am | IP Logged
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Cooking that is. My new kitchen has all new stainless steel appliances. The stove top is a glass top electric. I have NEVER cooked on electric heat!!! Any tips for me? What do I need to know? I don't think I'll be able to use my beloved cast iron double burner griddle...  I am looking at electric tea kettles right now. I am used to boiling a full kettle in just a few minutes over my gas stove. I think it will be more energy and time efficient to use an electric kettle now. Anything else I should know?
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SusanJ
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Those were the two things I was going to mention! I had an unhappy three years with an electric range. But those glass tops are such a dream to clean--so that's a plus. And your oven will probably work much better. That has always been my experience. In general, everything is much slower to heat and cool. A hard habit for me to break was that the burner was still hot for awhile after turning off the heat. So food needs to be moved off unless you want it to continue to cook. The glasstops always have a light to remind you but when I'm home at my mom's it never really works for me.
I would have a major stove safety review lesson with your younger kids. Kids who would never think of touching an open flame might not think anything of putting their hands on a nice smooth cooktop moments after killing the heat.
Electric griddles are nice and usually a bit bigger than the cast iron version anyway so you might want to look into one of those if you do a lot of pancakes or grilled cheese.
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Lisbet
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| Posted: Feb 05 2010 at 12:02pm | IP Logged
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So no cast iron at all?? I guess I check out electric griddles...
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
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Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
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Paula in MN
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SusanJ wrote:
| A hard habit for me to break was that the burner was still hot for awhile after turning off the heat. So food needs to be moved off unless you want it to continue to cook. |
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Ditto - that was the hardest thing to learn. And when I finally did, I moved and went back to gas.
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JodieLyn
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I've always heard no cast iron on the flat surface electric, it is more likely to scratch or crack the surface and voids the warranty in many cases if you use it.. which is sad because cast iron is how we even out the heat some with our coil top electric.
It helps if you have something you can set onto the hot surface.. like I often move my tea kettle to whatever burner is hot that I've taken a pan off of.
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Bookswithtea
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We had to make the switch when we moved.
First, make sure your pans are absolutely flat bottomed for a glass top cooker. Anything even slightly warped won't cook well on a glass top.
When you are making something like rice, put the cold water and rice on the front burner on high to boil, and the burner directly behind it, put on low. When the water boils, this is the only way to move to instantly lower heat so that you don't lose your boil. If you just turn down the heat on the front burner, the water will continue to hard boil for too long before it finally cools down. I saw a couple of chefs do this on the food network and it works great.
You cannot water bath can on a glass cooktop. This drives me crazy. Water bath canners do not have flat bottoms. Its impossible to maintain a consistent heat/boil for the required number of minutes. Or if you do manage to get it hot enough, it just may crack your glass cooktop. If you can, you will need to buy a separate propane type burner.
I still use a standard tea kettle without any problems.
The most annoying part for me is the cost. Its expensive to use an electric oven. I do a lot of slow cooking recipes now to avoid using my oven entirely, even in the winter.
I would love love love to have a gas stove again. But it seems like they are much less common in rural areas.
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JenPre
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I'm the opposite...just learning how to use gas after never having used anything but electric.
A big piece of advice that I can say (after learning many times from personal experience!) is make ABSOLUTLY SURE that the burners are all the way cool before washing the stove top. It may seem like a "duh" kind of thing but when you get in the grove of cleaning the kitchen you don't tend to think of the stove as hot but as another piece of the counter. But it gets hot and tends to stay hot for quite awhile.
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Kristie 4
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Make sure your canner (if you can) is flat bottomed...we had a place where the previous owner had her glass crack right in half from the canner.
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Angie Mc
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Bookswithtea wrote:
When you are making something like rice, put the cold water and rice on the front burner on high to boil, and the burner directly behind it, put on low. When the water boils, this is the only way to move to instantly lower heat so that you don't lose your boil. If you just turn down the heat on the front burner, the water will continue to hard boil for too long before it finally cools down. I saw a couple of chefs do this on the food network and it works great.
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Thanks!
No cast iron on the stovetop...sigh...but you can still use it in your oven  .
Splurge and get a good cleaner for the top - like Cerama Bryte. Have a clean, sharp razor handy - use only with cleaner. Don't take my word for this - double check your cleaning instructions.
Love,
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MaryM
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I use my cast iron frying pans on the ceramic top. I could not give that up. I was not the one who chose the ceramic top. I'm just really careful with lifting/setting down and not sliding. Our pans are flat and smooth on the bottom. The ones with the raised ring won't get even heating. And if your pans are rough or have spurs you could sand that down to prevent scratching.
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mellyrose
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Why aren't you supposed to use cast iron on glass cooktops? We've always used our cast iron frypan on our electric glass cooktop . . . 10 years now?
I do miss cooking on gas -- the instant heat / instant turn off was a hard thing to lose when we went to electric. I also miss my gas dryer . . . but I guess that's another post. 
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Mackfam
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MaryM wrote:
| I use my cast iron frying pans on the ceramic top. I could not give that up. I was not the one who chose the ceramic top. I'm just really careful with lifting/setting down and not sliding. Our pans are flat and smooth on the bottom. The ones with the raised ring won't get even heating. And if your pans are rough or have spurs you could sand that down to prevent scratching. |
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DITTO!!
I used my cast iron just tonight on our ceramic cooktop. I'm just careful in not sliding so I don't scratch. I use cast iron on the cooktop all the time.
We struggled with our ceramic cooktop for quite some time. We discovered the same rice trick that Books mentions above, and it was a huge help. We did finally invest in a set of VERY good cookware. Nice and heavy, stainless steel, flat bottoms which makes even contact with the surface. I found that good pots, very good pots, make all the difference in the world in cooking on this type of cooktop. It dramatically improved the problems I was having on this cooktop...so much so that I was flabbergasted!
The key, and really the only limitation I've found, is that ALL cookware must be flat on the bottom and must fit the size of the eye. If something doesn't fit, it won't trigger an appropriate heat response.
Yes to the electric kettle. My sister has one and it is super quick and very efficient!
The BEST and only thing I've found that adequately cleans (and I'm a bit of a stickler about this!   ) a glass cooktop is the Scotch-Brite cooktop cleaner. The starter kit is a bit of an investment, but trust me, all the burnt on, cooked on gunk comes off and it polishes the surface so nicely. The replacement pads aren't too bad. I'm able to find these at my local grocery store. Thought I'd mention this since I searched and searched for something that would clean it well...and finally found it!!
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missyc
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lisa-
Do Not let your pots/pans boil over!! The mess sticks to the burner and continues to burn  ! At our house, the smoke alarm going off doesn't mean fire, rather, dinner is almost ready
Good luck!
missyc
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Bookswithtea
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We use baking soda to clean ours. We have used expensive cleaners made for a ceramic cooktop and they work great, but dh says that the baking soda works just as well (he and ds are the ones that keep it clean for me ). I think they might use it along with a magic eraser sometimes?
Jen's right about the pans fitting the eye. I hadn't thought about that, but its really irritating when I can't get the heat right because of the size of my pan. 
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Bridget
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Due to my impatience, I found that the burners clean up nicely while still hot. I use a wet hand towel, folded up so that there are many layers. Just swipe across the hot burner fairly quickly and it creates a steam action that cleans well.
And I use my cast iron, including the double griddle.
Electric does cook more slowly and unevenly than gas, but you'll adjust to it.
I am so excited about the house for you!
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MarieC
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Lisbet wrote:
| So no cast iron at all?? I guess I check out electric griddles... |
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We just got a big electric griddle. S did tons of research (he should work at Consumer Reports!)...let me know if you want to know what we ended up with. I've used it, but I don't remember what it is off hand.
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DianaC
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Marie: Our electric griddle is about on its last legs, so I would love to know what you selected.
As far as cooking with electric, I've been using an electric (coil) stove now for about 18 years. I haven't had any problems with heating up/cooling down/maintaining temp. but I think it's because we use aluminum cookware. We have Calphalon for general use and Revere stainless with aluminum bottom inserts for acidic foods. We bought them on the recommendation of chefs who said it would work most like gas - and it has worked very well for us. My rice cooks as well in my Calphalon saucepan as in my rice cooker and it's easier to clean up. Stir fries were a concern, but with the aluminum, I always get an even crisp/tender outcome. At this point, I wouldn't go back.
For saving money while using your electric oven, see if your power company offers a "time-of-use" program. Ours offers one and we have daytime off-peak hours in the winter from 1pm to 4pm. This is ideal for us to pop in breads, cookies, etc. to have in time for tea or ready for dinner. And the cost is reduced to .04 cents per kwH. (Also, nights and weekends are always off peak which gives us plenty of time to prepare additional meals for during the week).
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MarieC
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DianaC wrote:
| Marie: Our electric griddle is about on its last legs, so I would love to know what you selected. |
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We got the Presto Tilt & Drain Big Griddle
We've had ours a month or two and our only complaint is that the element really should be bigger for the griddle's size. If you're patient and really let it come up to temp it works pretty well. Regarding size...I used it yesterday to make french toast and I used two large french bread loaves and I filled the griddle three times to get it all done. That seemed pretty quick to me for that much french toast.
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DianaC
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Thanks for the recommendation, Marie. I'm off to check it out!
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Going from Gas to Electric
