A few induction tips: (Love my Induction-- user for 8+ years) Cleaning takes only a few minutes! I cut up old, soft towels to clean the top. Dampen a clean one with hot water and use a drop of Dawn or Joy; rub the cooktop with the soapy-side then flip the rag to just-the-wet side and wipe off the soap. Buff with a clean, dry towel-rag. (I have the stainless steel top and bottom edge--cleaning them this way is no problem.) ONLY USE A CLEAN RAG (sponge, paper towel) EACH TIME for washing or drying the top! I am concerned about thermal-shock to the glass. Get a nice, thick, silicone trivet/potholder and put it on a corner of your cooktop. A great place to move hot pots and pans to or to place pans, safely, from the oven. Learn NOT TO shake pans! (PS - I have used paper towels under pots. They can get scorched. And the one kind seemed to leave a trace of its waffle-pattern that I had to buff out with the cook-top crème. I now just try to use a bigger pot for things prone to bubbling over -- oil, oatmeal, etc.)

To start with, this is enough off topic that you might not get as wide a range of answers and attention as you would if you posted a new thread with this question. Please understand that I am not telling you to go away; I'm only telling you that a new thread might get your clearer and better informed answers to your specific questions. Okay, that having been said, it seems to me that maybe you need to have oven temperature control and cycling explained so that we can rule out or rule in the possibility that the microprocessors have been toasted by the self-cleaning cycle. First thing is this: oven preheat signals are lies, pure and simple. They only measure the air temperature in the oven but what you need for even and proper baking is to fully preheat the cavity (oven walls, celing, floor, etc.) That takes longer than the "preheat." In most ovens (including those in GE Profile ranges) "fast preheating" is advertising hype and bragging rights, not reality. Here's how an oven works, electric ovens in particular. (I say all of this from having owned and used a GE Profiile DF range for a decade and something. If you already know this, then just take this as putting us all on the same page for discussion.) You turn the oven on and set the temperature dial/touchpad to say, 350F. With an electric oven, and some gas ovens, both the top (broiler) and bottom (baking) elements come on. (And, with some newer convection ovens, the rear "convection" element also may come on.) The air temperature climbs and the walls etc. also start to heat up. When the air temp hits 350F, the sensor says the oven is preheated. Except that it is not. Most of baking is actually done with ehat radiating from the walls fof the oven cavity, not the air termperature. (Mhyrvold's Modernist Cusine website and book explain this in great technical detail if you want the geeky details.) What actually happens is that the bottom and top burners continue running until the actual air temp climbs a lot. In your case, it apparently climbs another 50F. Then (hopefully) it shuts off. Trouble is, if you put your baked goods into the oven when the preheat signal goes off, the top burner is still hot and likely is still operating. At this point, you might as well put your pie, your roast, your whatever under the broiler. The top will burn. OTOH, if you wait a few more minutes after the air temp hits the programmed max and the burners shut off. The air temp starts to fall, Your oven cavity's walls are picking up heat and catching up with the air temp but are not there yet. Another four or five minutes -- maybe ten with some ovens -- and the air temp falls to 325F or even 300F. One or more burners come on again. And, once again, the temp goes above your set point. It might go 50F above or it might go a bit less this time. My vintage 2000 GE Profile DF would go 50F above and then drop 50 below, then go 40 above, then cool to 40 below, then go 30F above and below. As best I could tell, the top element was used only in the initial run up but your newer stove may do this a bit differently. It would cycle maybe 25F above and below using only the bottom and convection heating elements, After about 30 minutes, it would reach a sort of equlibrium and the temperature would average around the set-point. Basically, most ovens take 20 to 30 minutes to actually stabliize at a baking temprerature. Now, if your oven is now running 50F above the set point, but not otherwise failing to work, it is possible that the observed symptom would have been the result of damage caused by the self-cleaning cycle but not probable. My experience is that when something goes wrong from overheating during or as a result of a self-cleaning cycle, the failure is typically catstrophic. Such as, the oven stops working altogether. To me, a more likely and simpler culprit is that the oven calibration has drifted. Is the oven running consistently 50F over the set point after a 20 to 30 preheat? If the oven is consistently too hot (after giving it at least half an hour to properly preheat), then I would look at the use and care guide in the section on adjusting the oven termperature settings. Hope this helps get your started o sorting out the problem. This post was edited by JWVideo on Mon, Feb 10, 14 at 13:12

Texas Gem, there's nothing wrong with choosing the flames. :) Amck, if you want the look of an impressive range anchoring your kitchen, but with a sleek, new induction cooktop, you can install it over drawers, or any kind of cabinet that will give you the correct air channel for cooling, and bump them out a couple of inches to give them prominence. Then, paint, stain, leaf or clad the stove base to make its statement and find cool hardware to complement the look. Add feet in the toekick to finish out the picture. It won't look like a range, per se (or at least not without being hopelessly kitsch), but it'll highlight the importance to the kitchen of the cooking area, and add some pizzazz. If you have an oven below your cooktop, add some tall side storage, and a shallow drawer under, for trays and racks, and dress as above. RE NOISE: There are high pitched tones that some induction cooktops make that only kids can hear (and the occasional outlier adult who is highly atypical in not losing that range of hearing with maturity). Additionally, there can be perfectly audible buzzes, thrums and clicks. These noises vary with the pan, the contents and the power level, so it's possible to have a unit that does it and never know for the first five years. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in general, the massier the pan and the denser the food, the less you'll hear. Boiling water in a thin pan will often reveal them. Sometimes clicks come from inductors turning on and off at lower settings and are unavoidable. The audible to kids only sounds are usually persistent. If old fashioned fluorescent tube lighting always drives you buggy, then the sounds of induction might not be for you, especially if you have a quiet kitchen in a quiet house in a quiet neighborhood. If you're thinking "Huh? What noise from the lights?" you probably won't hear it. If the noise from the fluorescents is something you hear but doesn't bug you, the same will probably be true with induction. When in doubt, turn on the hood and some music. :)

I have an induction X years (smeg) after cooking with gas (Viking) for years. I use a radiant cooktop at my in laws. My thoughts: nothing beats gas for varied pots/pans and control and professional cooking results. Radiant is slow, unpredictable and best avoided. Induction is acceptable BUT cheaper stove tops or some pots will vibrate which is annoying. SOME induction stovetops advertise “linking” of burners but only a few have a “smart top” which applies magnet/heat to the entire bottom of your pot (imagine my dismay cooking with a large LE creuset only to realize it heats up with the small 8” induction burner area leaving the rest cold-ish or linking the burners which kept the heat the same on two burners but did not change the shape of the energy application) I have not used an induction smart top before. Still don’t think it would work for wok cooking as well or be as versatile but potentially could make induction tolerable. Wish I had stuck w gas. My husband thinks induction is fine and tolerable.