Try induction

A KitchenAid induction hob at a recent demonstration

An induction hob is simply an electromagnet you can cook with. Inside the attractive glass hob there’s an electronically controlled coil of metal. When you turn on the power, you make an alternating current (one that keeps reversing direction) flow through the coil and it produces a magnetic field all around it and (most importantly) directly above it. And that’s all that an induction hob does: it simply generates a magnetic field. It doesn’t generate heat. You can put your hand on top of it and you won’t feel a thing unless it’s recently been used for cooking because of the heat from the cooking pan that’s been standing on top of it.

When you stand a suitable cooking pan on top of an induction hob that’s switched on, the magnetic field produced by the hob penetrates the metal of the pan. As it swirls around inside the metal’s crystalline structure, it dissipates its energy. So the metal pan gets hot and heats up whatever food is inside it.

Benefits include: –

Efficiency and speed

A Neff Induction Hob with Elica extractor above

A traditional cooker generates heat energy some distance from the cooking pot or pan. With induction cooking, the heat is produced in the pan, not the hob, and much more of the energy goes into the food. That’s why induction cooking is more energy efficient than most other methods (around 84 percent compared to 71 percent for a traditional hob).

Induction cooking also gets energy to the food more quickly; typically, it’s around 25–50 percent faster than other methods.

Convenience, control, and safety

Induction hobs add energy efficiency and clean lines

Induction hob are usually easy to clean, wipe-clean ceramic or glass cooktops.

You can turn the heat up or down with as much speed and control as a gas cooker (unlike an electric hob which takes some time to heat up or cool down).

There’s no open flame on an induction cooktop and (until there’s a saucepan actually present) no heat to burn you. Heat appears only when the cooking pot is in place. Electronically controlled cooktops can detect whether pots are standing on them and how much heat they’re producing, and most will cut the power out automatically if they’re left on by mistake or if a pot starts to boil dry.

Induction cookers built into ceramic hobs are only a couple of inches thick so they can be fitted at any height (good for disabled people in wheelchairs who might want a low-level kitchen).

We stock Neff, Miele and Kitchen Aid induction hobs as well as others and have years of experience fitting them. many are on show in our newly extended showroom – pop in and see us, we’re here to help.

The same (clean!) hob as above showing pop-up, horizontal extractor