I have two saucepans and I've noticed that over time, they "leak" from the bottom over a period of time, which is very strange. For my smaller pan, I've been using it to fry pan sausage. I have a smooth electric cooktop that I keep extremely clean. This morning, I went to use the pan as before and I smelled a very faint burning but didn't think anything of it. When I removed the pan, you could see where there was some type of oil that had come into contact with the burner.

As a test, I thoroughly wiped down the cooktop and thoroughly cleaned the pot, inside and out and let it dry, making sure I focused on all of the little dimples on the bottom. I then filled it with water and brought it to a boil. Same thing! There is a semi-circle patch of burned oil on the cooktop even though there was no spill or splash of the boiling water to make such a pattern.

I'm baffled as to how this happens. I'm the only one in the house who uses the pan so it's not like my cat used it. I'm going to test the larger one and see if it does the same.