I really shouldn’t try to do two things at once.  I knew we were almost out of yogurt, so thought that I would put some milk on to reduce down, while I was answering my emails. I did briefly think about setting the oven timer to remind me that it was on, but completely forgot.

An hour later, I answered the door to a courier, thinking ‘What’s that smell??’ and found that my milk had not only boiled over but the remains had crusted onto the pan in a solid black lump. I’ve burnt a few saucepans in my time, but this one won the gold medal:

OMG! How burnt is this?

I did think for a split second about throwing it out, but I love this pan (and I thought you might be interested to know it’s not just you that burns saucepans….) Anyway I googled ‘clean burnt saucepans’ and came up with a myriad of ideas, but the most oft-repeated was to add some fabric washing powder (I used gel) to the saucepan and bring it to the boil for 15 mins.

This was the result after 15 mins:

Looking much better but still....

As you can see it was a LOT better.  So I gave it another 20 mins with some fresh water and washing gel, then applied a little elbow grease and scouring pad to finish it off…and the result is:

A clean pan!

So, if like me you occasionally try to do too many things at once and end up burning a saucepan, don’t throw it out…just get out your washing powder and make it sparkle again.