The wet paper towels on top softens the stuff. Use only plastic to scrap it and you won’t scratch it.
Yeah - plain water soak to loosen the gunk and scrape with a plastic (or metal if you have to resort to it) edge. I would avoid the butter knife if only for the teeth leaving marks. You may seriously have to leave pools of water on it for an hour at a time to get it up but it will come up.
Plan B - wash it with your ex’s jewelry until it scratches to shit, fill it with cat piss then “generously” concede it in the divorce.
A plastic or teflon covered spatula (Pancake turner) to scrape off the big pieces, a razor blade to scrape off the finer residue (Like scraping a window-very carefully holding the blade at an angle.) Then take windex/409 something similar, to give it a nice shine.
To clean gum out of a dryer, you’re supposed to let wet fabric softener sheets sit on the residue for a bit then scrape it off with an old credit card.
This worked well for me, for gum in the dryer. I wonder if that’d work for the stove top?
Old credit cards are great as scrapers because they’re stiff and hand-sized.
I second the razor blade suggestion. It was the only thing that worked on our old glass topped stove (hated that thing, btw–PITA to clean). Never scratched it, but be careful.
I’ll tell you what I do for burned-on messes on my glass top range. I pour boiling water over the mess, let it sit a bit. Scrub off what I can, then repeat with the boiling water. I then use Barkeeper’s Friend and a Fuller stainless steel sponge. It has never scratched my surface.
Good luck!
That’s not abrasive unless you’re using so much that it doesn’t dissolve.
ShelliBean, it’s his sister’s stovetop, not his own. I can see being more terrified of a sister than an ex - my brothers and me know each other’s buttons as well as She Who Installed Them does, we’re just less likely to jab them.
LouisB,
I would be going for the as much water soaking as possible, and elbow grease approach, but …
This is a situation where doing something could be far worse than doing nothing - it is your sisters stovetop, so you should man up, apologise for your inattention, and ask her what the recommended cleaning approach is.
Better to take the hit for something that always will happen (boilovers are a given, in any kitchen), than do something foolish in an attempt to clean it up that marks the top permanently.
And the fact is, with the right treatment it will clean up properly, and confession is good for the soul 
Just don’t get desperate and stupid.
Si
Bon Ami, which is a cheaper version of BarKeeper’s friend, also is very highly recommended. ( Harder to find, for some reason, but I loves it. Your Love may vary. )
This is so obvious it made me go :smack:.
Anyway…how’d it go?
Oops - use something plastic, not a butter knife - my brain fart. I’d take a knife to my own range, but not someone else’s (after they explicitly said not to).
If you don’t have Magic Erasers in the house, I suggest getting some. Once you give them a try, you’ll be running around the house with one, trying it on everything.
The Scotch Brite Cook Top Cleaner saved my bacon with burnt-on stuff I couldn’t get off my ceramic cooktop. If there are burned smudges left no matter what you do, get one of these things. It worked amazingly well. (I used 409, let it soak, repeated, and peeled off whatever I could before using it, but the bottom of my pans left scorch marks on the white stove that I couldn’t figure out how to get off until I bought this thing.)
Nothing has worked so far but then again, nothing seems to have made it worse. I’m going to have to wait until she gets back from North Carolina and throw myself on her mercy. Problem is, I’m already on her mercy: I would be homeless at this point without her aid and support. I’m really sick over what I’ve done.
I might have given up too soon; I applied a lot more elbow grease using a Magic Eraser and the results seem more favorable. I now have a puddle of SoftScrub drying and I will cover that with wet paper towels, allow them to dry, wipe up the SoftScrub and hit it with the Magic Eraser again. And again. And again, as necessary.
Thanks to one and all for all the advice; I know you’re pulling for me. And I apologize for quoting a post that had nothing to do with my reply to that post. Another Senior Moment.
What exactly is the nature of this stain? Is it a 3-D crusty gunk stain or a flat burn mark type stain. I can’t exactly see how lima bean water is going to make a world class stain.
In any case there is a solution to your problem, but it takes some serious endurance and muscle. Assuming this some sort of crusted mess you get some warm 50-50 vinegar -water mix and spoon it over the crusted area. Get out some credit cards or similar plastic cards. Whatever you use it has to be thick and stiff like a regular bank card. Let the water sit for few minutes then grab the edge of the card and start chipping at the edge of the gunk. Use both hands if you have to. Put some muscle into it and the crap will slowly chip and scrape off. You make break a card or two in the process so make sure they are not mission critical or can be replaced. They key is to get a sharpish edge you can get some serious leverage and muscle behind, after several minutes the stain/gunk will start to chip away. It may take an hour or so to get rid of it this way, but it will work.
Astro, the problem resulted from the fact that the boil over went on for about ten minutes; by the the time I smelled it, critical mass had been reached. When I grabbed the pot, I burned the hell out of one hand, although I haven’t mentioned this before, and the eye of the stove was glowing red and was too damned hot to wipe down. Therefore, the gunk from the beans had a lot of time to merge with the burner eye and by the time I could stand to work on it, the bean gunk had taken on the consistency of granite. I’ve been applying all the muscle and stamina my 69 year old migraine racked body could conjure up and I am making progress slowly but surely. Your advice is good and I actually tried a little of it (not the water-vinegar) but the credit card last night. I’m sorry to say it didn’t work all that well for me. But the migraine is retreating and I will try what you suggest if what I am doing now fails. I do appreciate the input.
If all else fails, just put the beans back in the pot, put the pot on the stove element, and turn the element on high. Once the flames start, call the fire department. Either the hosing will be sufficient to put out the fire and clean the pot, or the flames will engulf your home on Christmas Eve, leaving you homeless at the very best time of year to ask friends and strangers for a new home, including a clean new pot. Either way, you can’t lose. (Of course, I’m a divorce lawyer, and you already know how divorce lawyers cause burned bean pots, so you may not want to take my advice.)
Seriously, I hope you have a good Christmas, LouisB, and a better year for you in 2010. 
Louis, did you make any headway with the mess?
Just use a single-edge razor blade paint scraper.
It won’t scratch a Ceran-topped stove. I do it all the time.
One of the worst stains I’ve had on mine was when a pot of pasta (elbow macaroni, IIRC) boiled over. That was when my stove was fairly new and I was still in the “OMG! Abrasives will wreck it forever!” stage. It was impossible to get off with all the methods I tried, but it did go away over time. Now when I have a boil over or spill (recently a brown sugar/butter mixture that was very sticky) I just whip out the Bar Keeper’s Friend.