Well THAT'S never happened before! I was making Pineapple Curd over the double boiler and apparently the steam built up and POOF! an impressive explosion of steam, boiling water and spilled pineapple curd blew up all over the stove. I only had it over medium/low heat, and it's the same double boiler I've used since 1991. Anyone else have this happen? I'm a little mystified.

By some small miracle I wasn't burned, even though I was whisking at the time.

Glad you were not burned!

making candy did that to me a long time ago. After that I just left a crack to vent the steam every once in awhile.

It was scary and yes, am too glad you were not burned!

I got rid of my "official" double bolier decades ago. It fit together too tightly. Now it's a stainless steel pan sitting on top of a saucepot. Works great, one less thing to store.

Wow. I've always been worried about my pressure cooker exploding....it never occured to me that my double boiler might!

I saw a recipe today that urged melting chocolate over "hot, not boiling" maybe that's the key. (But then why call it a "double boiler?")

I think I'll do like Leah and use two less tightly fitting pans in the future.

So sorry that happened. It is a scary thing. Last weekend I was coking omlets and my burner blew out. That burner started sparking like 2 feet in the air. My first reaction was to grab the pan off ther stove. After taking care of the fire alarm going off and no more sparks on the stove, I got to looking at the burner and a 1 inch chunk is now missing. I looked at the pan and it actually burned a hole in it. God spared my life that day because the pan did not have a metal. That was alot of electricity running through that pan. I like Leahs idea. makes good sense. Just be careful and happy safe cakin.

Sorry... I meant to say the pan did not have a metal handle.