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One of the reasons why I chose my awesome waffle iron and incredible grill/griddle combo is that they both came with removable, dishwasher-safe plates. I imagined how easy they would be to clean. But even my powerful dishwasher was no match for the burnt on, sticky messes that I routinely make of those plates.
When you heat oil as high as I do on those things, it burns and turns kind-of gummy and nearly impossible to scrub off. Add to that the chocolate chips and cinnamon buns that we routinely put in the waffle iron, and those plates got dirty and old-looking fast.
One day, in frustration, after scrubbing and scrubbing with a nylon brush and no luck, I decided to try some Carbona. I have a self-cleaning oven, but we drip cheese all over it frequently, heating up pizza right on the oven racks (to get the crust nice and crispy), and I don’t want to run the cleaner every time we have a cheesetastrophy – it takes hours and makes the kitchen really hot. So I use Carbona for spot cleaning.
Well, it worked on the gunky plates, better than I had even dared to hope! I can burn all the sugary oily foods I want, and still get those plates looking like new with minimal effort. Here’s my method.
Put the plates in the sink dry. Don’t rinse them first. You don’t want to dilute the cleaner.
Completely cover the plates with the Carbona spray. Go ahead and stack them if you’re cleaning more than one. Keep them flat so that the spray doesn’t run off into the sink.
Let them sit for one hour. Make sure nobody runs any water into the sink during that time.
After an hour, still without rinsing, scrub the plates with a nylon brush. You won’t need to scrub much – most of the gunk will be almost liquid at this point, but there may be some stubborn spots, especially in the corners. If you’re cleaning more than one plate, make sure not to rinse them until all of them have been scrubbed.
Rinse the scrub brush and then rinse the plates, scrubbing with the clean brush to help get the cleaner and food bits completely off.
Let air dry.
Done! Clean! It even gets rid of those nasty bits that collect around the edges. Now they’re all ready for more burgers or veggies or cinnamon bun waffles. Go crazy!
Dianne Strickland
Thursday 29th of October 2015
Wow, the final results really look wonderful. Only thing I would add is to make sure to rinse well when finished, as you don't want any residue to transfer to your tasty waffles.