Removing Melted Plastic from My Cooktop

Please tell me this has happened to you. You're moving along just great getting dinner ready.  You move the rice off the hot burner, you get your chicken that's been marinating and dump it into it's pan,  you turn and set your plastic lid on the hot burner. Happily cooking away, you don't realize it until your husband picks up the lid and says with a raised eyebrow, "Ummmm." Yeah.  That happened to me last night. Just when I was trying to think of what to post about next...this little gem falls right into the proverbial lap. Removing melted plastic from my cooktop wasn't even on my radar for a household tip. But, here it is.

I wish I would have looked up to see that the burner was still hot, although I should have known I had just moved the pan off the hot burner. I wasn't quite sure how to tackle the problem. After doing a little research, I settled in on a mode of attack. Let me just say, there are plenty of other ways to do it...some while the burner is still hot.  But I needed to focus on getting dinner finished so we could eat before 9pm.  First let the burner completely cool.

Get some ice cubes and put them right on the melted plastic.  Let this sit for a couple of minutes. This will cause the melted plastic to shrink up a bit so you can "pop" it off with a straight edge.

Gently use your straight edge (one sided razor blade, or thin metal spatula) to lift off the plastic.

There may be a little residue left.  I did a little bit of gentle "scraping" and then turned the burner on for a couple of minutes to heat up the surface again.  This burned the rest of the plastic and I was able to carefully wipe it away with a wet dishcloth.  Wah-lah! Clean cooktop!

 I'm only sorry that a storage container's lid had to be harmed in the process.  Clearly he wasn't happy about it. Don't be like me... pay attention to which burners are hot.

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