How To Clean A Glass Cooktop

So I decided to clean my glass cooktop...because I saw it on Pinterest.

"How To Clean Your Glass Cooktop"- This pin originally came from Jayna at Behind The Studio. 

I am lazy.

I make messes and leave them for so long that they make their own messes.

I am especially lazy about cleaning the cooktop.  I think I only ever use the front right burner.

Isn't burner an appropriate term for something that is constantly involved in me burning dinner?

Anyway, there was a huge ring around the right front burner.  Mostly dried oil and boiled over macaroni and cheese.  Nasty.  I keep losing my Ceramabrite.  Not that it is that effective.  So this is what it looked like when I started:

Overall, pretty dirty. Especially that right burner.

The first step, according to Behind The Studio, is to cover the affected area in a generous amount of baking soda (I used Arm & Hammer) while soaking a towel in a bowl of hot water and dish liquid (I put like a teaspoon of Palmolive).

I'm just focusing on the offensive right burner for now.  I don't want to overexert myself by trying to clean the entire thing at once.

I squeezed about half of the water out of the rag and covered the baking soda-ed burner with it.  Then I set the timer for 15 minutes.

A lot can happen in 15 minutes.  In my case, I decided to eat some pizza that had been cooking in the oven. (Note to self: don't leave boxes of baking soda on the cooktop while the oven is on. The heat will make the box stick to the cooktop, thus creating more for me to clean. Sigh...)  I was on the second bite when my sweet little (naked) girl came riding through the kitchen on her stick horse.  She was singing but stopped abruptly.  I looked over to see her make a strange face and then I heard...splat.  Potty training a toddler is such an adventure.

Ok, so after 15 minutes (and a bath for the little one), I used the towel to scrub the cooktop.  This is what it looked like:

I must have done something wrong.  Pretty sure it shouldn't look like this. So I started over.  More baking soda to the burner and more soaking under the hot, wet rag.

You can totally see where I used this side of the rag to scrub during my first attempt.  Ewww... <Shame>

I waited 15 more minutes and scrubbed with all my might.  But it really wasn't coming up very well.  So I got out the little scrub pad that came with the cooktop.  Its the square yellow thing in the picture below.

I scrubbed for like 15 minutes.  It was awful.  I hate manual labor.  But I could feel the goo coming off gradually.

After I had scrubbed as much as I was willing to in one night, I used a clean wet rag to wipe off the baking soda.  Then I sprayed it down with Windex.  This is the finished product:

As you can see from the picture above, there is still a little goo stuck on the burner.  But this process really did get most of it off.  And if I had scrubbed a little longer, it would have all come off, I'm sure.  Also, keep in mind that my goo was like...a year old.  Seriously.  I am a terrible housekeeper.

I did this little experiment at night.  When I look at my cooktop this morning with the sunlight coming in, I can see lots of scratches.  I am sad about this, but I don't know what is worse-goo or scratches.  

So overall, I give it an C- . This may be a fabulous, harmful-chemical free way to clean your cooktop-if it isn't as dirty as mine!  So don't wait a year before you try it...