I had forgotten to turn off the back burner on the stove after cooking and then just went about my day. I later went to heat some coffee up in the microwave and tossed our plastic Ikea food-splatter-catcher thing on the stove like I always do when it's not needed.
I pressed start on the microwave and ran downstairs for something. A few minutes later I had forgotten about the coffee in the microwave {apparently a terribly forgetful day for me} but smelled something burning. I ran upstairs to find flames dancing across my stove. Melted plastic everywhere.
We managed to put out the flames but two of our four burners were covered in melted plastic. We managed to get most of it cleaned up but some just wouldn't budge.
Fast forward over a month:
We've managed to get by with just the two burners because we were both avoiding the clean up that we knew would suck. Because of that stubborn avoidance we also stopped cleaning the rest of the stove. Why bother cleaning half the stove when the other half is a mess?
I scoured {haha, see what I did there?} Pinterest for a good stove cleaning plan and a few results came up that involved baking soda and peroxide. After a moment of hesitation where I forgot that it was baking soda and vinegar that creates a volcano, I created a paste of the two ingredients and smeared it all over the stove. I let it work its magic for about 2-3 hours. Mostly because I forgot about it. I'm sure an hour would be sufficient.
After I got the paste all smeared on, I tossed the burners in a sink full of HOT water and Dawn dish soap. I assumed this would magically melt all the gross off of the burners, and it did not. Even with some scrubbing it just wasn't doing the job.
With Plan A being a total bust, I grabbed my trusty jug of vinegar to see if that would work any better. Guess what? It did. I filled the sink with more hot water and several hearty splashes of vinegar. After some soaking and some scrubbing with a rag {and a razor blade for the melted plastic} my burners were as clean as they were going to get. Not quite the magic I was hoping for, but they looked a hell of a lot better than when I started and I was able to let them dry while I went about my day.
Like I said, I totally forgot about the paste on the stove. When I finally got back to it, the paste had hardened and I was able to use a rag and warm water to wipe it off. IT WAS MAGICAL. All the grease and gross wiped right off. A few tough spots required a little more effort to wipe clean, but overall it was a cinch. {I used the razor blade on the melted plastic here, too}
After all the paste was wiped away I used a little vinegar and water for a streak-free shine. I'd like to think that the stove will never get this gross ever again. But if it does, at least I have a game plan.
Do you have a cleaning trick you swear by? Let me know!
-H
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