Smooth-top white ceramic cooktops started showing up in kitchens in the 60s & 70s

Vintage smooth surface stoves - flat range cooktops from the 70s

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The counter that cooks: A cleaner, happier way to cook (1968)

Come on in to a new kind of kitchen. Glide your finger across a whole new idea in cooktops. The Counter That Cooks, invented by Corning.

Smooth. White. Elegant. There are no burners. No coils. No grease catcher. Just a flat, white surface. Sunburst designs mark the electric heating areas. Each has its own thermostat. So temperatures stay exactly where you set them, anywhere from LO (150) to HI (475).

Cooking is easier, more ladylike. Make a meal in the Cookmates you get with The Counter. The Cookmates are like CORNING WARE Cookware, but they are ground flat and polished to mate with The Counter.

Contact between The Counter and Its Cookmates is so intimate, the heat is so even and so precisely controlled, you’ll never need a double boiler again. You could use any old pot or pan, if it is really flat across the bottom, but you won’t want to, once you use a Cookmate.

Cook, serve, store in your Cookmates in the same Corning tradition you’ve enjoyed with CORNING WARE and PYREX. Think about us the next time you clean your old stove.

Corning - The counter that cooks - smooth stoves from 1968


Introducing the first Touch-N-Cook Range in history. (1973)

For 55 years, we’ve been bringing you firsts in appliances, but this is one of the greatest firsts by Frigidaire and General Motors.

We’ve replaced all the dials and knobs with a smooth, glass, solid-state control panel. You don’t turn anything on, you touch it on. The oven. The surface cooking units. The temperature. Everything. And the digital control panel displays your instructions so you can see if they’re correct.

This range is just as easy to clean as it is to cook on. The glass control panel wipes clean in seconds, the top is ceramic — that wipes clean, too — and the oven can clean itself. And we back everything with a 5-year Nationwide Protection Plan. See the Touch-N-Cook Range at your dealer soon. Only Frigidaire makes it.

You get a 1-year warranty for repair of any defect in the entire range, plus 4-year Protection Plan (parts only) for furnishing replacement for any defective or malfunctioning Touch Control Glass Panel and Circuit Board, Surface Heating Units and Surface Unit Thermal Relays and Oven Heating Units and Oven Sensor. Frigidaire… Home Environment Division of General Motors.

Touch-N-Cook Range 1973


Roper smooth surface kitchen stove (1978)

Create your own custom cooktop ROPER Arrangeables Cook Center

Not one . . . but 6 different cooktops all-in-one! Imagine … bacon and eggs sizzling on the griddle in the morning. Snap! Your Roper Arrangeable cooktop converts quickly to a grill for juicy broiled steaks at dinnertime.

Versatile! You convert to the cooking combination you need at any time with inter-changeable choice: Pyroceram smooth top, deluxe coil units, or grill simply snap in or out, plus griddle, rotisserie or chop-ping block individual accessories. Choice of R-II dual-unit and R-Ill triple-unit cooktop chassis.

Roper flat-top kitchen stove from 1978

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Ceramic flat-top kitchen ranges from Tappan (1978)

Ceramic flat-top kitchen ranges from Tappan in 1978


Before you buy a smooth-top range, find out what’s under the smooth top. (1976)

If you look under the ceramic cooktop of most smooth-top ranges, you’ll find heating coils that operate like the ones on ordinary electric ranges. But the CORNING 3 + 1 Range gives you something better. The most precise temperature control ever put under a smooth top. Or for that matter, any range.

Every CORNING 3+1 Range has three specially designed heating elements. (They’re the “3” in 3 + 1.) These elements distribute heat evenly. So there are no “hot spots.” What’s more, they’re equipped with thermostats that actually read the temperature of the bottom of the pan. So you get exactly the temperature you want. A simmer can’t rise above a simmer. And you can do what you want, instead of being a pot watcher.

No other smooth-top gives you this cooking flexibility. Sometimes all you want to do is boil water for spaghetti. Or make a pot roast in your pressure cooker. So we’ve given the Corning range a Multipan element. (This is the “1” in 3+1.) It gets hotter than our other elements.

A little further down under the smooth-top is another great reason to buy a Corning range. Our oven. It’s one of the largest self-cleaning ovens made. One of the best cooking. And one of the easiest to operate. In fact, there is a brochure full of reasons why the CORNING 3 +1 is the best smooth-top range you can buy.

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Corning flat-top kitchen ranges from 1976


Jenn Air swappable kitchen ranges (1978)

Grill, traditional electric heating elements, smooth surface insert

Jenn Air Ceramic flat-top kitchen ranges from 1978


A smooth-surface inset ceramic cooktop stove on a kitchen island (1975)

Smooth surface flat cooktop inset stove from 1975


Corning’s Gourmet Counterange electric range: You’re probably a better cook than your stove is letting you be. (1972)

Corning makes a new kind of range that actually helps make you a better cook. You see, with most ordinary electric ranges, there are two things working against your cooking. (1) Hot spots. And (2) cold spots.

They occur because on a lot of stoves the electric coils get hot, but the little spaces in between don’t. What’s more, pots and pans don’t always heat up evenly, so you get sauces that curdle, puddings that scorch, and a family that doesn’t always give its compliments to the chef.

Corning introduces Controlled Heat. Now look at Corning’s Gourmet Counterange electric range. You see, or rather, you don’t see, that hidden beneath its smooth, tough, glass-ceramic countertop are over 15 yards of special heating element. They distribute heat under each of the four cooking areas with perfect evenness.

Then, to give you even more precise control, we’ve provided each cooking area with its own separate thermostat. And that’s just the beginning. With every Counterange electric range, you get a set of Corning Cookmates cookware. The bottoms of these glistening glass-ceramic pots and pans are impeccably flat, so they mate perfectly with our flat cooktop. You simply cannot get more even heat distribution, or more precisely controlled heat.

Of course you can cook with our own flat-bottomed pots and pans if you prefer. But when you se our range with our Cookmates cookware, you get something unique: a totally coordinated cooking system. In plain language, this means simmer stays a simmer, and a rolling boil rolls merrily along, tad not messily over. In short, it means you’ll be a better cook.

It cleans better. What’s more, since our rangetop is completely sealed, there are no little cracks, crannies, seams or joints where food can collect. Spills wipe up with the whisk of a damp paper towel. Even burnt-on food can be removed in seconds.

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A better oven, too. As for the big capacity oven, of course it’s self-cleaning. Now in this day and age, there’s nothing remarkable about a self-cleaning oven; except that when our oven self-cleans it stays cooler on the outside than just about any other oven around. And the inside doesn’t only stay clean; it stays beautiful. Because it’s got two coats of a special porcelain enamel finish that will keep it looking brand new for years.

The Corning Counterange electric range comes in two basic models. The Gourmet model shown here. And another model that’s not quite as fancy… or quite as expensive. Or you can buy our built-in The Counter That Cooks cook-top. And get one of our single or double wall ovens to match it.

The Corning Promise. Naturally, at Corning we stand behind every pot, pan and range we sell. And, naturally, we give you dependable, there-when-you-need-it service. But there’s something more: the Corning Promise. It covers all parts and labor for a year. And critical parts for three years. And we’ll make one more promise. Corning’s Counterange electric range won’t just help your kitchen look better. It will help your cooking taste better.

1972 Corning Countterange electric smooth surface stove range

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