If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Electric Hobs
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've just moved into a new place and have gone from a gas cooker to an old school electric one. How anyone manages to cook on electric hobs is beyond me; controlling the heat is an absolute joke - they take forever to heat up and then forever to cool down. It's a fucking savage way of cooking. Does anyone have any ideas/tips on how I can go about trying to make cooking on electric hobs possible?
0
Comments
Before that I had an electrical one too (but the newer ones that are just a glass plate). In my parents weekend house we have those oldschool ceramic ones and yea, you are right. It takes a long time to heat them, and if you heat them with no pot (with something in it) on it they will take damage etc. But apart from being a bit inconvenient I can't see how it is impossible to cook. If you are very hungry you can preboil the water in an electical water boiler (like a teasmade). Other than that try to waste as little energy as possible by using pots that match the cooking plate diameter and use lids on the pots. Otherwise it's pretty straightforward to cook on them.
About controlling the temperature. I guess you have to get accustomed a bit to timing, as in: If you rice boils and it needs some time to brew (I hope that's the right term. It's heating it for a long time on very little heat) afterwards, reduce the heat sooner as you would on a gas stove, or like flower girl said, remove it from the plate for a minute (the place cools off way quicker then) and return it on the hot plate then.
The only tip i can think of is if you are boiling anything, boil the kettle, put the pan on the ring turned up high with a teeny bit of water in then pour in the water from the kettle. If you get the ring and pan as hot as possible beforehand its alot quicker at boiling
And you can completely forget fine adjustments - you're on one of six settings, that's it.
ETA: I've just realised that once you've hit a heat setting, 3 for example, you've completely eliminated options 1 and 2 for the remainder of the cooking process because it's not going to return back to those temperatures for at least 15 minutes.