Carmelized Enamel Pot

Have you ever been cooking something and had the urge to multi-task?  Maybe you think you could just slip outside for a minute to take out the trash while you have something brewing on the stove.  Sometimes, it turns out OK, and other times you might wish you'd hung around the stove for just a minute longer.

My friend and co-worker Pat was cooking up some hummingbird sugar water on her stove, but she got distracted.  The sugar and water burned up into a lovely caramel mess stuck to her pan.  The pan is a Le Crueset which is rather expensive.  She wondered if she had destroyed her lovely pan, but she did an on-line search and came across several suggestions from e-How.  First she tried the denture cleaner method which didn't do much.  She then tried the following recipe and it removed almost all of the burnt sugar.  She did it a second time to make the pan pristine, and back to its lovely self.

I personally am a multi-tasker and have destroyed more than one tea kettle.  I will remember this recipe for the future.

Enamel Pot Cleaner Recipe

Pour two tablespoons of baking soda into the burnt enamel pot. Add two tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide, two drops of dish soap, and one cup of water. Place the pot onto the stove and turn on to low. Gently boil the solution for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pot from heat and let it cool before using the scrub brush to remove burned-on material.