claussen

We just put our first induction range into our new kitchen. It's a Cafe 30" double oven. First off, frickin' loving having a double oven! I'm also very, very happy with the general speed and performance of the range, but also still figuring out how to think about temperature controls, because of the way energy gets delivered to the pan. I've searched around a bit and haven't seen anyone actually do a writeup on the nitty gritty of usage. Some observations I've made about speed: - It's possible to get to smoke point almost instantaneously -- like five seconds or so, even on a small burner - When already at boiling temperature, turning the heat on/off is like flipping a light switch -- water goes from full boil to dead flat and back in a second - Element size mismatch can leave cool edges on larger and thinner pans - It feels kind of like induction delivers heat directly to the *top* of the pan, and maybe less so to the bottom? The instant heating is really neat, but also leads to some scorching if I'm not very careful with it, so... I'm adapting. But after some extended bacon cooking today, I turned off the heat and things kept sizzling for a *very* long time. Enough that I worried that the burner hadn't actually turned off! It definitely had, but there was a looong coast. That made me happy, because I do want some thermal inertia from the pan and cooktop. The whole thing seems to have two personalities -- super-fast, concentrated heat, but also relatively slow heating to even temp across the pan at medium and below. I'm cooking on affordable tri-ply Al/Stainless cookware ("Cooks Standard" all-clad knockoff stuff), so I was expecting it to equilibrate a *bit* faster. They're flat and decently heavy. Are these pans just crappy, or do those of you with nice All-Clad stuff also have to do a bit more preheating to get things to even out at lower temps? Related: Is there some target height above the cooktop where the inductive energy is most-focused? Like, if you simply set a two-inch thick slab of steel on top of an induction burner, where would the heat end up? Thanks for any input y'all can offer

Curious, what was your seasoning process? I'm looking at shifting over to carbon steel wok after some disappointing experience with a tri-ply.

Thanks for all the tips! Last night's batch (for a brownie bake-off) I tried a new way -- melted a half-tablespoon of butter and went at it with a wadded up bit of paper towel twisted into a sort of cylinder shape. Soaked it in the butter for a second and it actually worked really well. No brush-cleaning, thank heavens. Pretty much the only non-silicone bakeware in my kitchen (aside from springforms/pietins) are these minimuffin tins, which came from my grandmother -- hence the attachment. :) Due to last night's success, I think I'm gonna stay away from the sprays until the landlord deals with our ventilator fan, which is non-existent -- I spend enough time scrubbing airborne grease off my kitchen walls. Incidentally, rubbing alchohol with a spray-bottle top works *wonders* on that stuff.

Hi all, We've been doing a lot of muffin-tin baking lately, from popovers to brownie-muffins to regular muffins, and I'm getting pretty tired of greasing muffin tins the way mama used to -- with a bit of wax paper and some butter pinched out of the fridge. It's quite time consuming to get a good coating, particularly on the sides of each muffin depression. Is there a special method or tool used in professional bakeries? A butter-sprayer? Some other <gasp> non-butter lubricating oil? A brush? Do bakers keep a butter-soaked rag handy for this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! thanks! claussen