Electric elements used to mean unattractive, inexpensive, hard-to-clean coil burners. Although they’re still used on entry-level ranges, they’ve largely been replaced with ceramic-glass-topped radiant elements. Electric cooktops are much more efficient than gas burners, and about 70% of the energy they consume is converted into cooking heat.
Radiant cooktops rely on a thin corrugated ribbon within an insulating “bowl” that directs heat upward. The element cycles on and off to maintain the desired temperature. Because glass is a poor heat conductor, the heat from the heating element warms the cookware without radiating far outward from the element. The roughly 30% heat loss comes from having to warm the glass before the pot.
Although a good electric cooktop can bring a pot of water to a boil faster than a gas cooktop, having the glass between the element and the pot makes for poor heat response. If you’re warming a pot of milk on a gas cooktop and it’s about to boil over, turning off the burner will stop the boiling almost instantly. On an electric cooktop, there’s enough latent heat in the glass that milk will continue to boil.
Most radiant cooktops have at least one burner with a variable-size element that can operate at two or three different diameters. Look for a variety of element sizes that match an assortment of cookware sizes. Compared to the grate system on a gas cooktop, the smooth, sealed, glass cooking surface on an electric unit is minimalist and unobtrusive, and spills can be wiped away with a sponge—after the surface cools.
The surface does present a few potential problems, however. The glass can be scratched with abrasive cleaners, grains of sugar on the bottom of a pot, or even the rough surface of a cast-iron skillet. Blunt objects—a pepper mill, for instance—dropped from an overhead cabinet can crack the surface, and foods like sugar, sugar syrup, milk, and tomato sauce must be removed immediately. These items and some recalcitrant stains have to be scraped off with a razor blade held at 30º to the surface. (Cooktop manufacturers sell scrapers that make it easy to use a razor blade properly.)