Glass Top Stoves

With people preferring open kitchens these days and kitchen decorating becoming an indispensable part of interior decoration, the latest trend to catch the fancy of everyone is the stylish, chic, sleek-looking glass top stoves. These kitchen appliances offer you the same durability and convenience as any other stove, the added benefit is that they look hot (pun unintended!)

Advantages of Glass Top Stoves

It's not only their look that attracts people. The fact that they are extremely convenient and safe to use plays a major part in their buying decision. The glass on these stoves is designed in such a way that it cools down very fast after usage. So, that prevents lots of mishaps. The settings on these stoves help you to adjust the cooking surface according to the size of the cookware. This means that you do not have to worry about buying appropriate cookware as almost all kinds of cookware can be used on it!

Another benefit is that it saves money and time. Its surface takes much lesser time to get heated as compared to other kinds of stove tops, thus saving time for cooking and money for you. Last, but not the least, maintaining and cleaning is extremely easy. A separate section given below will elaborate on how to keep the stove surface sparkling clean, but first some tips on buying the right cookware for these kinds of stoves.

Best Cookware for Glass Top Stoves

To buy the suitable cookware, consult the user manual that comes along with it. It will suggest you specifically the size, material, finish and weight of the cookware that should be bought to prevent any kind of damage to the glass surface. Here are some tips on the same:

• Buy pans that are small in size. As glass top stoves have a flat surface, if you buy pans with a wide surface, their edges might not get heated properly, thus resulting in uneven cooking.
• For the same reason i.e. flat surface of glass top stoves, go in for flat bottom and weighty cookware as it will sit securely on it and also produce even cooking.
• Buy cookware whose bottom is not painted. As these stoves reach much higher temperatures compared to others, the paint can sometimes fuse with it, causing irreparable damage to the glass surface.
• Modern cast iron cookware, which is enameled, is the best choice for glass top stoves. So, buy all your cookware in this material.

How to Clean Them?

Cleaning glass top stoves is very easy as you do not have to disassemble the parts, like you have to do for a standard stove. After you have finished cooking for the day and when you are ready to clean the surface, wait for the indicator light on the glass stove to go off. All glass stoves have this light, which indicates that the surface is still too hot to be touched. Once the light goes off, take a soapy water mixture or a non abrasive cleaner, a sponge and wipe the entire surface of the stove with it. If you do this every other day, your stove will always remain clean, thus aiding in overall kitchen cleaning.

In case, you have a stubborn spill on the glass stove, soak it in hot water for sometime and then follow the same procedure as mentioned above. If still it does not go off, buy a scraper which is especially designed for a glass stove and remove the spill with it. Baking soda, vinegar and water mixture, prepared in equal quantities, is a good homemade recipe for a cleaner that can remove many stubborn stains and spills.

The kind of beauty and sophistication that glass top stoves lend to a kitchen is unparalleled. They are safe, convenient to use and easy to maintain. These days, a special polish is available in kitchen stores which if applied to glass stove tops can make them look new for years! All these features make investing in glass top stoves a very good idea.