Cooking appliance with first and second heating surfaces

A cooking appliance comprises a lower heating assembly and an upper heating assembly. The lower heating assembly has a lower cooking surface and the upper heating assembly has an upper cooking surface. The cooking appliance may have any or all of a guide post 106 and receiving aperture 108,109, a guard, a reservoir and/or a hinge assembly. The upper cooking surface is preferably translatable relative to the lower cooking surface in at least a substantially vertical manner, wherein the upper cooking surface and lower cooking surface remain substantially parallel to one another when the upper cooking surface translates relative to the lower cooking surface. The cooking appliance may be provided by a thermostat and the cooking surfaces may be removable, may be patterned or textured and may interchangeable. In use, the cooking appliance may be used to prepare a number of food products including, but not limited to, tortillas, crepes, pitas, paninis, pancakes, naan, pizzelles, knaeckebrot, krumkakes, waffles or dosas.