I had a bag of miniature marshmallows sitting on the stove, waiting to be dropped into hot chocolate. Like an idiot, I used the oven, and now I have a melted blob of sugar, gelatin and plastic stuck to the stove.
How do I take the goo off? The stovetop is enamel.
Robin
Wow.
Well, the sugar and the gelatin are both water-soluble, so I’d work with warm water and some kind of plastic sharp edge (do you know what a plastic bread dough scraper is?) and try scraping off the plastic. Soak off the sugar, scrape off the plastic.
When you get most of the plastic off, you can finish up with one of those plastic scrubbie pads.
Also, turn the oven back on to about 350, 400, as that will soften the plastic and make it easier to scrape off.
Do NOT use a metal object/knife/pancake spatula, or steel wool–you’ll scratch the enamel.
Flamethrower ? 
But seriously, you have an exciting evening of cleaning ahead of you. Get a putty knife, or just a knife, and scrape off what you can. Then turn the stove back on and pour a small amount of water over the gooey mess- just enough to give the marshmallow something to melt/dissolve into, not dribbling down into burner holes or onto the floor. Let the heat do its work, stirring occasionally, and wipe/scrape up what you can before repeating with fresh water. Keep going, the marshmallows should gradually dissolve. If you end up with some plastic still stuck to the stove, you might try some orange oil based cleaner on the warm enamel. As far as I know, no one makes “marshmallow-be-gone” so you’ll have to do this the hard way. Good luck.
Plastic putty knives can be had at the hardware store for 25¢ or so. If you don’t have any goo-gone, that orange-glow (or one of the many copies) seems to work well on gooey sticky messes.
Don’t feel bad.
<hijack>
When us kids were growing up, Mom used to bake a cake once a week. (Yeah, a chocoholic family!)
One day, she was going to bake something else, started to preheat the oven but forgot to check the oven. Inside the oven was a one-fourth eaten double chocolate double layer cake sealed inside a Tupperware cake carrier.
She smelled something was wrong early enough to prevent a fire, if not a disaster. Still the Tupperware container melted enough to hermetically seal completely around the cake with the excess plastic melting around the oven grill. Some plastic dripped into stalactite-stalagmite pillars pooled on the floor of the oven.
We manage to remove the grill shelf with the hermetically sealed cake and container intact.
We kept the whole thing for something like ten years stored in the basement. It came out on occasion as part of a family ritual.
Eventually, Mom because amused by it all.
</hijack>
If the plastic (polyethylene) was completely melted, you are in bad shape - I know of nothing which will dissolve it. A torch might burn it off, but that would also destroy the enamel (it pops off metal surfaces if subjected to extreme localized heat).
That leaves mechanical removal - the plastic scratch pads might cut it, but it’d be a toss-up. There used to be non-ferrous metal scrubbers for cleaning pots and pans - if one is readily available, try it.
You wanted a new stove anyway, right?
Uh, no, actually. I like the one I have.
I don’t think the plastic itself melted to the stove; it’s sitting on top of the marshmallow goo. I’ll try some nice hot water to soften it, and see what I can do from there.
Robin
MSROBYN -
See if you are able to remove the top of the stove. IIRC some models you are able to lift the top off for cleaning under the burners. If you can remove the whole top you can take it in the basement to clean it or even outside where the mess is easier to clean up.
I don’t know if this will work, but if the warm water and scraping don’t do it for ya, try Krud Kutter. It’s sold at home improvement stores like Lowes and Home Depot. It seems to work on everything, shouldn’t hurt enamel.
I’ve been using it to get latex paint off tile and grout. Works like a charm.
You could try Greased Lightening. You spray it on and leave it for a while then scrub it off. I’ve used it on pans that had some burned on goo and it came off after a few applications and a lot of scrubbing.
I have a similar problem. My wife left a bunch of firewood (the kind you buy from the store wrapped in plastic) too close to the fireplace and the plastic melted onto the brass doors. I have not tried to scrape it off yet but i had planed to have a hair dryer blow on it a while to soften if up a bit. I don’t think there is any “goop” remover that will break down plastic or your marshmellow bag. Most of the above mention products break down adhesives to remove things but won’t break down the plastic.
Well, acetone or toluene might dissolve the plastic, but the lingering fumes would be both toxic and flammable. I suspect scraping will have to do the job.
What Squink said, plus there’s a product called “Goo-Gone” you might ust to try to clean up the rest. Good Luck!
To save you some trouble - I sprayed a chunk of poly dropcloth with a “Goof-Off”, “Goo-Be-Gone” type solvent - no effect.
I have also used acetone on such stuff - no effect. Did not try MEK, but suspect the result would be the same - that stuff is quite inert,
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I had a similar situation except the culpit was a bag of chocolate chips. The chocolate itself came up easily but the plastic stuck pretty good. I figured if the warm stove could cause the plastic to melt that easy, it should melt it again and melted plastic is easier to remove than cool plastic. I set the oven for 500 degrees and after a few minutes, tried peeling up the plastic. It took about 10 minutes but the plastic came up in one piece. squid suggests using a hair dryer that may work too.
You can buy hand held “heat guns” from Sears and large hardware stores (think hair dryer on steroids with much higher temperature ceiling) that will soften the welded on plastic enough to remove it once the other crud is removed. Your husband probably has one of these in his maintenance shop if they will let him borrow it for the night.