The eating season is here and that means cooking, lots and lots of cooking. To prepare a big holiday meal it helps to have a cooktop that can quickly bring a big pot of water to a boil for potatoes or a burner that can maintain a constant low heat when you're making a chocolate dessert. Enter the Maytag MEC7430WS, the new electric smoothtop that just took first place in our 30-inch cooktop tests.
Precise simmering and super-fast heating put the Maytag MEC7430WS a point ahead of our previous champ, the Kenmore 44273, $1,150 in our cooktop tests. The Maytag's two high-power elements were slightly faster at boiling water than the Kenmore and nearly as fast as some induction cooktops, but at $800 the Maytag costs hundreds less. It also has two low-power elements, stainless steel trim, and control knobs that Maytag claims are easy to clean. What you give up: Expandable elements that let you switch from a large, high-power element to a smaller, lower-power element within it.
