I just tried the turning off method and it worked great on my electric smoothtop! Brought the water to a boil, put in my pasta, left in on for three minutes, and then covered for the remaining seven minutes. It did boil over a bit after covering, but that's on me for setting too high a temperature after adding the pasta. Still came out perfectly al dente! Now, this was with Mueller's, which is an American brand that I find significantly better than the standard US-produced Barilla even though it's a bit cheaper (highly recommend giving it a shot!), but I wouldn't call it fancy--will be interesting to try it with De Cecco and see if I encounter the gumminess you mentioned.