Electric stove

An electric stove converts electricity into heat to cook and bake.

History

Thomas Ahearn first showcased the cooking range in 1892, installing one in the Windsor Hotel in Ottawa. The electric stove was showcased at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where an electrified model kitchen was shown. Unlike the gas stove, the electrical stove was slow to catch on, partly due to the unfamiliar technology, and the need for cities and towns to be electrified. By the 1930s, the technology had matured and the electrical stove slowly began to replace the gas stove, especially in household kitchens.

Variants

The first technology used resistive heating coils which heated iron hotplates, on top of which the pots were placed.

In the 1970s, glass-ceramic cooktops started to appear. Glass-ceramic has very low thermal conductivity, but lets infrared radiation pass very well. Electrical heating coils or infrared halogen lamps are used as heating elements. Because of its physical characteristics, the cooktop heats more quickly, less afterheat remains, and only the plate heats up while the adjacent surface remains cool. Also, these cooktops have a smooth surface and are thus easier to clean, but they only work with flat-bottomed cookware and are markedly more expensive.

A third technology—developed first for professional kitchens, but today also entering the domestic market—is induction stoves. These heat the cookware directly through electromagnetic induction and thus require pots and pans with ferromagnetic bottoms. Induction stoves also often have a glass-ceramic surface.