My daughter and I went out and picked some amazing strawberries. They were huge and easy to pick so we picked a ton. When I got my two baskets home I realized that I had picked way too many berries for just the two of us.
Since Luke takes a peanut butter and jam sandwich to work every day, I thought I would be nice and make some strawberry jam. In retrospect, I should have listened to him when he said, “Why would you bother doing this? I like Smuckers®!”
I should back track a little and say that I was making this jam on a brand new Samsung range that I had had for about a WEEK! This was one of the first “involved” things that I had made on this appliance.
The stovetop is a flat glass one, with no raised elements, which I am not used to (still).
I was making the jam and it was starting to heat up on the stovetop. As it was warming up, I turned around and put the remaining 5 pound sugar bag on the shelf on the very top of the pantry. As I stepped back from the floor to ceiling pantry, it was like my body offered some kind of gravitational pull. The sugar fell from almost the ceiling all the way to the floor!
Thank goodness I put it on the top shelf – that way, the radius of sugar splatter was much more impressive. There was sugar all over the kitchen. So as I alternated from stirring the strawberries and sugar to wiping up and vacuuming up the sugar, the next disaster was brewing. I had to get the sugar cleaned up before the dog ate it and / or tracked it through the house!
I had my back turned on the stovetop while I was on my hands and knees cleaning up the sticky glue-like sugar. As I was dry then wet then dry wiping up the sugar, the strawberries and sugar boiled over. Of course!
NIGHTMARE on the stove stop. Now this could turn into a Norwex Ad as I had hoped the cleaning paste and SpiriSponge would take the SUBSTANTIAL amount of boiled over sugar and berries OFF of the stove top!!
OH. MY. GOD. What a MESS.
What an awful mess. I cannot believe how much of a mess it made! I finished boiling the fruit and then starting bottling. I thought, at the time, that I should just finish MAKING the jam before cleaning up my mess.
I was jarring the last of six jars when I dropped said jar all over the counter top and it ran between the counter and the oven. No biggie…fresh hot strawberry jam woudn’t stain the freshly painted white cupboards… COULD IT?!?!?!
So I pulled the stove out and thank God Taylor showed up and squeezed in behind to scrape the floor and walls while I wiped down the side of the oven. No stain on the cupboards or the countertop… THANK GOD! BUT I honestly did not know how many tries it would take to get the sugary mess OFF OF THE STOVE TOP!!!
In the end, I ended up with 6 jars of strawberry jam (oops 5.. Tay got one). Factoring in time, aggravation and blood sweat and tears (and MAYBE a couple of F bombs), I figure they are worth at least $699.00 each!!!
I reached out to a number of people for suggestions as to how to get the burnt on sugar off of the glass without scratching the brand new (did I mention?) glass stove top. I spent about $50 on scrapers, razor blades and cleansers. None of them worked on their own.
I am pretty sure I have a mild, undiagnosed case of OCD so the stovetop was driving me nuts. Every time I walked by it, I had to take another shot at cleaning it! I was afraid to use the Norwex SpiriSponge for fear of scratching the surface. I was sure that a razor blade would leave huge marks in the top. Even an abrasive cleaner was making me nervous.
I even called Samsung to see how much it would be to replace just the top of the range. Of course, it was almost as much as the whole range! So that was not an option – just on principle!
After a week and 20 hours going back to stove with different cleansers and blades and scrapers, it is now ALMOST back to normal. At least it doesn’t make me angry every time I walk by it!
Lesson learned? Stick to Smuckers®.
*** And for those who are curious, there wasn’t just one thing that worked although I am partial to the Norwex Cleaning paste and Enviro Cloth and the razor blade that came in the glass top stove cleaning kit.
Life with Clark and Coco 