My favorite stove even was a gas cooktop with a very high output center burner. That sucka’ put out as many BTU’s as the other 4 burners combined and had 3 concentric fire rings and is intended for wok cooking by turning over the center grate which had 3 or 4 supports for the wok. That made lots of sense and a total joy to use.
Fast forward to today and my current range of choice does have a next to useless oval shaped center burner that almost gets never used. There is a griddle that goes on top for griddle cooking which I have tried a few times. I have used it for pancakes but found a new pan is more non-stick and practically has about the same area as pancakes are round, not rectangular with drip containing edges. Occasionally I have used it as a keep warm area for a big tray, though I could have easily done that other ways. Also this range does have a large burner (front right), though no where near that power monster of yesteryear. Overall I do like cooking on that range so it’s a pretty big plus.
Also griddles in general have made some serious inroads even having outdoor (BBQ style) and portable models. Makes sense as people tend to make more veggies and meat alternatives though that type of food is really not to my liking as I prefer grilled meat.
Our GE range/cooktop is excellent. It has a ceramic electric cooktop, with four elements plus a ‘bridge’ element between the two on the left. It came with a cast-iron griddle pan that you can place on the left side. Turn on the two left elements plus the bridge element, and you get a full long griddle. We use it ALL the time. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, hot dogs, etc. Put the griddle away and turn off the bridge burner, and you have a standard four element ceramic cooktop. No space wasted.
It also has two ovens - a small pizza-oven style on the top, and a full convection oven on the bottom. I like the energy efficiency of using the small oven on top for most of our cooking. The big oven only gets turned on when we are making huge meals for guests, for some baking, or when we have two oven dishes that need different temperatures but should be cooked at the same time.
My mom’s gas stove has the griddle in the center. That stove/oven/range was installed in 1961! She still has the same one. When I was a kid, it was just used for pancakes.
Are pan cakes that damn popular that stoves have been made for decades with a huge special attachment for them? I have never made pan cakes in my life and haven’t eaten any since I was a child.
My mom had a huge electric griddle that she pulled out and used just for pancakes. (and bacon, if she was also making pancakes. If she wasn’t the bacon went in the broiler.) So yeah, if it’s worth buying a whole appliance for it, it’s somewhat common.
My husband makes pancakes pretty regularly, but he uses a large non-stick pan, not the griddle that came with the range (which we’ve never used.)
I can totally see a pancake lover getting a standalone griddle but I would probably just use a big frying pan like puzzledude. It’s the seeming ubiquity on ranges and cooktops that surprises me.
Anyway, since I know you are all dying to know the result, I will be range (and dishwasher and tile) shopping with my designer in a few hours. I will let you know.
I was the market research manager on Aunt Jemima for about a year, in the late '90s. Even at that time, most people who made pancakes did so infrequently – maybe once a week, at the most, typically on the weekend, when they and their families had more time to sit down for breakfast. My suspicion is that this more or less the same today.
We did have a small segment of our users (skewing Hispanic) which made a “cooked breakfast” every morning, including pancakes.
Yeah, here when we have pancakes, it’s on the weekends, though it’s been many months since I’ve made them. Before I had kids, I made them approximately never. I don’t like pancakes except for the type made with cornmeal, jalapeno, cheddar, and sometimes ham or bacon. Thankfully, these days my kids prefer crepes, which I prefer as well, and I can make a ham and cheese one for myself. Either way, I find those griddles awkward for both, as they run front-to-back rather than side to side and I find flipping a bit tricky. And then there’s clean-up, as mentioned.
Firstly, I love how you often have interesting and relevant information based on your marketing career. It seems to me that if people used something weekly, it would make sense to have a permanent attachment but your data is that people who make pancakes do so weekly. What percent of the population are pancake makers?
Thank you! I have had the opportunity to work on a lot of interesting products, and a lot of fun brands.
I don’t remember from the data I had back then, but this cite suggests:
12% of Americans eat pancakes 2+ times a week
25% eat them once a week
29% eat them a few times a month
34% eat them less than once a month (which, I am going to guess, includes “I never eat pancakes,” because the numbers add to 100%)
But, keep in mind that that likely includes (a) away-from-home meals (i.e., eating pancakes at a restaurant), as well as (b) eating frozen pancakes, neither of which would require an at-home griddle.
Also, pancakes are only one of the three major “carriers” – that is, the foods which Americans tend to put syrup on top of: pancakes, waffles, and French toast. And, yes, we called them “carriers” when I worked on Aunt Jemima; they were all essentially “syrup delivery systems.”
Anyway, a griddle could also be helpful when cooking French toast, but not so much for waffles.
Remember that pancakes aren’t the only thing that can be cooked on a griddle - my stove doesn’t have a griddle, but I have always had a griddle pan, and we used it 2-3 times a week when my kids were young, between pancakes, French toast, eggs and grilled sandwiches.
I am definitely going to try out the griddle if I have one anyway. I can see how it’s really just a gigantic frying pan that is evenly heated so it makes sense if you are cooking for a family of four or more. I live alone so I am only ever cooking for myself or me and a date. A regular pan would work just as well for me.
But the pan is so much easier to clean and so much cleaner to cook in. I tried hamburgers once on the griddle and there was just grease all over the cooktop. And then hauling that monstrosity into the sink where it doesn’t really fit. Much easier, for me at least, to deal with a pan.
Like I said - I have a griddle pan. I was just pointing out that even if you only make pancakes once a week , you still might use a griddle more often. When I bought my stove, I absolutely would have bought one with a built-in griddle - my husband tends to cook diner breakfasts and either a built- in griddle or a griddle that goes across two burners would have made things much easier. And the advantages to the built-in one are that 1) I wouldn’t have to find somewhere to store it and 2) I’d still have four burners available.
My range has a griddle. I used to use it often when I was more into carbs for making French toast and pancakes. I’ve also used it for frying patties of sausage and ground beef. Eggs occasionally. Patty melts, grilled cheese and toasting burger buns.
There is a hole drilled in the stove to drain grease and extra bits into a catch tray below. It’s not a big deal to clean.
It’s a dedicated item, not removable, and it looks as if it’s been used – because it has. My late husband made several cutting boards that fit over the griddle when not in use. The cutting board looks nice and functions as a spoon rest/extra work space when not actively in use for its designed purpose.
I had a choice of configurations for the stove and never regretted opting for the griddle.
Yours sounds much nicer than mine. Ours is the removable type, so after thinking I’d make use of it and realized its drawbacks (to me), I just replaced it with the regular cooking grate it came with for a fifth, central burner.
You’re right. Mine is a fine and expensive range that we paid a small fortune for back in 2005, and for which I’d pay quite a lot more for today were I to replace it. Even with the griddle unit, it has 6 ea. 17,500 BTU burners also available. I could have gotten 8 burners, or 4 burners with a griddle and a grill. But I grill just steps away outdoors at all times of the year, so the griddle was by far the most useful configuration to me.
With your unit, I’d probably have done exactly the same as you have. That large middle burner would be a lot more useful for making gravy in elongated pans, among many other things.
But my point is that we looked for a unit with a griddle because we knew we would use it, and even if we were limited in choice to a smaller, less expensive unit, I think we still would have looked hard at a unit with a griddle.
[What I didn’t know was that my wonderful husband would die so young (and not related to my cooking, to be clear) and I would use the whole unit much less than we’d planned. Life is such cruel irony at times.]
