One of the main differences between electric and gas stoves is how quickly they change temperature. With a gas stove, if you notice something is about to boil over or burn and you turn the stove down accordingly, the change happens quite fast. The flame instantly goes down, and since there’s some airspace between the bottom of your pot and the heat source, extra residual heat leaks away swiftly (via Cook’s Illustrated).
On an electric stove, if you turn the heat down, nothing happens at first. The coils (or glass surface, depending on what kind of stove you’re using) stay hot for a while even after you turn the burner down. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the extra heat has nowhere to go but into your pan, as your pan is actually touching the burner.
To avoid scorched eggs or a stovetop covered in over-boiled rice water, use the two-burner method. Either keep a second burner preheated to a lower temperature, or just move your pan to a burner that’s turned off while you wait for the hot burner to cool down. This way, you can replicate the near-instant heat loss a gas stove provides.
