How do I cook properly on a ceramic hob?

A ceramic hob is a radiant element under a sheet of glass-ceramic. That construction gives you a flat wipeable surface and takes away almost all the responsiveness that gas cooks are used to, which is why food burns on them so often in the first few weeks.

Safety

Step by step

1. Work with the lag rather than against it.The element takes 30–60 seconds to change output and the glass holds heat after that. Turn the heat down before things reach the point you want, not when they get there. If something is about to catch, lift the pan off the ring — that is the only instant control a ceramic hob has.
2. Use flat-bottomed pans that match the ring.Heat transfers by direct contact, so a warped or domed base touches only in a ring or at a point and most of the energy goes nowhere. A base smaller than the ring wastes heat around the edge; much larger and the rim stays cool. Check pans against a straightedge if food is cooking unevenly.
3. Choose pan materials that suit contact heating.Heavy flat-based stainless, aluminium and enamelled cast iron all work well. Bare cast iron works but is rough and will scratch the glass if dragged. Copper and aluminium can leave metallic smears on the surface, which come off with a hob cleaner.
4. Lift, never slide.Every scratch on a ceramic hob comes from dragging a pan across it, usually one with grit or a rough base. Lift pans on and off. Scratches are cosmetic rather than dangerous but they are permanent and they collect dirt.
5. Watch the residual heat indicators.The lights stay on until the zone has cooled below roughly 60°C, which can be several minutes after cooking. That heat is useful — you can finish something gently on a switched-off ring — and it is also how people burn their hands and melt plastic bags.
6. Clean it correctly and immediately.Anything that boils over should be wiped as soon as the surface is cool enough to touch. Burnt-on residue comes off with a ceramic hob scraper held at a shallow angle and a proprietary hob cream. Do not use abrasive powders, wire wool or a scouring pad, which dull and scratch the glass permanently.
7. Deal with sugar and plastic immediately, while hot.Molten sugar, jam and melted plastic bond to the glass as they cool and take a piece of it with them when removed later. If something sugary or plastic spills onto a hot zone, switch off, and scrape it off with the hob scraper straight away while it is still soft — carefully, with the heat off and a long-handled tool.

Tips

• If your hob switches itself off part way through cooking, that is usually a safety cut-out doing its job — an overheating sensor, a spill on the touch controls, or the child lock. It is rarely a fault with the element.
• Touch controls do not work through liquid. A pan boiling over onto the control panel will make the hob beep, change setting or shut down. Keep that strip dry.
• A solid-plate hob — cast iron discs rather than glass — is slower still and needs the same technique, with the additional rule of drying the plates and wiping a trace of oil on them to stop them rusting.
• Ceramic is roughly comparable to gas for running cost and considerably slower than induction. If speed matters and you are replacing a hob anyway, that is the difference you would notice most.

Common mistakes

• Using a pan whose base is smaller than the marked ring — The exposed ring radiates heat past the pan, wasting energy and heat-stressing the glass around it. Match the pan to the zone or use a smaller zone.
• Putting a hot pan straight back down on a cold part of the glass — It is not the shock that matters so much as the grit — a hot pan pressed onto a crumb welds it to the surface. Wipe the hob before and after use.

Questions people ask