After moving our households together and doing all the requisite furniture buying, the TakoGuy and I are still missing a few essential household items. We’ve been looking for a toaster oven for weeks now and we still haven’t found one that we both agree on.
I’ve always had cheap toaster ovens at home like this. They’ve been decent enough, but the boyfriend has been rejecting all the cheap models because of piddly things like “glitchy knob” and “[is a] fire hazard!” The higher end models seem well made, but I don’t really need a LCD screen or 9 pre-set functions.
So, tell me about your toaster ovens! Was the oven barely warmer than an EZ bake? Did it make your life just that much better? Any stories, good or bad are welcome.
Size doesn’t really matter, we have plenty of counter space but since it’s just two of us, we don’t really need a big toaster either. Doesn’t matter if it has convection either. Please don’t recommend toasters - no matter how awesome they are, we bake too many things that won’t fit into a standard toaster.
Talk about my toaster oven?? Thanks for asking!.. Right now I have a cheap tinny Classic Line Black & Decker - white (impossible to keep clean) - did I say cheap? I get a new one about every 5 years, when the old one expires. The current model works fine, though, and I use it every. single. day. Temperature seems to run true, and I preheat it before baking. I have a little pyrex casserole dish that I can bake meatloaf or casseroles in, it has a broil option, I can set a timer for 15 minutes or turn the timer off altogether. I can bake 2 french bread pizzas, 6 english muffins, a smallish loaf pan of quick bread, or fit in a 6-cupcake tin. Really, I just love the thing! The only thing it doesn’t do that well is make toast, it’s sketchy making toast. (There are just the 2 of us, so I don’t do a lot of cooking.) I have a toaster but I hate looking at it on the counter, it’s in a cupboard somewhere…
I’m perfectly happy with cheap n’ simple. I do unplug it after I’ve used it, though, not from any previous fire or anything, but I unplug my coffee maker, too. I just feel better unplugging things.
We got one of the higher-end ones from Krups. Mr. Horseshoe is of the opinion that for what we paid for it, it should be better. (We had issues with the hinge for the door, and a few more minor problems.) That said, we use the freaking thing All The Time. (Like others, there’s just the 2 of us.) I can fit a 8x8 brownie pan in there, so it gets scaled-down versions of things like meatloaf. I can bake a single chicken breast or 4 chicken wings - enough for a light dinner - and not heat up the damn kitchen.
I think the only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of an interior light, so you can see the exact browning level while food is cooking. I wind up peering through the window with a flashlight sometimes.
I have a Black & Decker Infrawave. It’s a gimmicky as-seen-on-TV product, and I absolutely love it.
It uses infrared light rather than a heating coil. There’s others like that on the market, but I haven’t used 'em and can’t comment.
Reasons I love my toaster oven:
No preheating. The IR light heats the surface of the food instantly. Without heating your kitchen. Also, since it doesn’t really retain heat when it’s off like a “real” oven, you don’t have to snatch food out immediately to prevent overheating.
It actually makes great toast; some toaster ovens I’ve used in the past are lousy for toast.
It’s perfectly sized for an 8"x8" Pyrex dish. This will become your favorite dish in your house. It’s the perfect dish for two-person entrees, and easy to clean.
Easy to use without feeling “too fancy.”
I’m sure there’s other great similar devices out there, but I sure love the one I own. It’s easy, attractive, works really well, and is a great addition to our kitchen.
I always recommend the same thing: my Hamilton Beach 31197. Its a combination toaster oven / convection oven / rotisserie. I’ve owned it for close to 7 years and it’s basically replaced my oven. If my house burned down, I would replace it with the exact same model.
The only con is it’s bigger than a regular old toaster oven. But if you embrace it as an oven replacement, that will not bother you.
I would give you a link, but I’m on my phone. I know you can find it on Amazon.
Hey TheTerribleTako! I’ve got a lovely red Oster toaster oven I’ll give you for free! It works great, as long as you don’t need a handle on the door (it melted off the last time I used it).
My new toaster oven is a KitchenAid. So far, I like it…toast and potatoes come out great. It’s a little bigger than a standard toaster oven though.
Me too, salinqmind. I think I’ll offer to unplug the oven after every use and see if it’ll make TakoGuy feel better. Somehow, I doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.
purplehorseshoe, I looked up the Krups on Amazon and this model was the one that TakoGuy used to have at his house. His had hinge issues too and I have to agree with your assessment that it’s not worth 5 times my cheap little oven. Gah, even that one has fire hazard reviews too.
Does the infrared light cook any differently than the regular heating coil? The main thing I’m concerned about is texture for bread and maybe meat. Is it able to give chicken skin that nice crispy skin? Sounds very promising though, and the allure of great toast is hard to resist. Thanks!
I just checked it out on Amazon. One of the reviewers mentioned that it doesn’t make good toast and well, I like toast. Do you make toast with yours? I also read that it gets hot on top and I’ll need to stick it under the cabinets. Would that be an issue?
Thank you for the offer, Jeep’s Phoenix! I’m a total klutz though, and I can just imagine burning myself daily if trying to get the door open. I’ll look into the KitchenAid too. How does the KitchenAid compare to previous toaster ovens that you’ve had?
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and stories! Keep them coming, they’re great. We’re probably going to buy one at the end of the week either locally if we can or online. Once we get it it’ll probably look like Biffy’s model within the month.
I have a Euro-Pro Convection Toaster Oven that I bought in 2007. I use it at least as much as my full-size oven. Actually, I may use it a bit more.
I tend to cook on the stove more than I use an oven, so what I cook is somewhat limited. I use the toaster oven for sausages – Cajun andouille, boudin blanc, bangers… whatever. I wrap them in foil, put them on the top rack in Convection mode at 350ºF, and set the timer for an hour. It’s easy, I don’t have to think about it, and the bell lets me know when they’re done. I also bake potatoes in it, make cinnamon toast, make garlic bread, breaded fish fillets, cheese sticks… that sort of thing. I used to make grilled cheese sandwiches in it by putting foil on the bottom rack and cooking them on the top rack (without the pan). But I prefer making grilled sandwiches on my $2 garage sale cast-iron fajita pan.
The convection toaster oven I have, which is in the link, received so-so reviews. After hearing people IRL comment that ‘toaster ovens don’t seem to last very long’ I expect mine to break any time. But after three years it still works great. If it ever does fail, I’ll get another convection toaster oven. I’ve found it to be very useful. I just hope I can get a basic one like it, without a bunch of electronics. I like the old-fashioned knobs.
I love those things. They’re both a toaster and an oven Great for heating up leftover pizza or whatever for 1 or 2 people. A toaster can only make toast…you’re lucky if you can even get a bagel to fit in there.
Ours is a Cuisinart Classic. We’ve used it almost every day for the past eight years, including six months of fairly heavy use when we didn’t have an oven.
It has three knobs (temp, setting (off, toast, bake, broil), toast doneness) and a start and stop button for the toaster. It does everything you want it to and nothing you don’t. It’s easy to clean.
I’ve been very impressed with it so far, particularly in the toast-making department. My only complaint is actually the door handle; it’s excessively curved, so the door doesn’t lay flat against the counter. While there’s still plenty of room to access the oven’s contents, my mother has burned herself three times on it so far because she’s used to a toaster oven with a slightly wider-opening door. (Another part of this may be the rack position – I have one of the racks positioned lower than you would see in a standard oven.)
I have a small Black and Decker. While it does okay on toast, the top element seems to close for anything else and it just burns stuff. I hate it. But I love toast.
I had that same toaster oven until last month. It worked great, but the fan was pretty damned noisy and mine was like 5-6 years old and dirty and I had broken the pizza stone and lost the broiler pan somehow, so my mom was visiting and offered to buy me a new toaster oven.
It is the worst toaster oven ever made. The rack can’t be pulled out even halfway or it falls onto the door. The door is curved, so you can’t easily slide a plate between it and the rack. It has no fan, so it doesn’t heat evenly. It sucks at making toast. The knobs are difficult to get ahold of and turn. The timer isn’t even close to accurate (you think you set it for 10 minutes, but 16 minutes later there’s still no ding). It doesn’t even turn off when you turn the heat setting to OFF. It’s the shittiest toaster oven ever.
So, I had to use my toaster oven to make a veggie burger about an hour ago. The bun was getting warmed up in there too, after an initial heating of the burger, and before the timer dinged, I pulled all of it out and ate my burger.
Went back to surfing the 'net until I got thirsty, and went back into the kitchen for a drink. I felt a wave of heat as I got to the 'fridge, and lo! and behold! the fucking toaster oven is still on, the timer unmoving from where it was when I opened the door. An hour ago. Still on. FFS.
This piece of shit isn’t worth taking to Goodwill. I smashed it with a hammer and threw it in the trashcan. Good riddance.
Mine has a really cool feature: it has a cook mode selector and a toast button, so you select toast on the dial, press toast, then toast is made. However, if you don’t turn the mode selector to “off”, even after toast mode has ended and it’s not cooking any more, it will warn you with a horrible high pitched, continuous screeching sound. Problem is, this warning occurs anywhere from 24 - 72 hours after use, or not at all. I feel safe.
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. We considered several of the toasters, including some of the higher end Black and Deckers, the Hamilton Beach model, the KitchenAid, and the Cuisinart. There didn’t seem to be many differences that separated any of them above the rest within a certain range of toasters ($60-120). At that price range, the features were all fairly similar, so we ended up buying according to sales and availability. Today, we got a Cuisinart since there was a sale at Costco.
Thanks again, Dopers! I’ll update this in a week or two to let you know how we like it.
When our old toaster oven died, we cheaped out and bought a fairly low end Black and Decker model. I work in quality, and the technical term for its performance was suck the big one. The biggest issue was the cheap timer knob got stuck often (even after moving it past 10) and so unless you watched, or set another timer, you burned stuff.
We got so fed up that we tossed it, and I bought my wife a large Kitchen Aid toaster oven. So far, it has been perfect. The Cuisinart ones looked pretty good also, but were more expensive.
Big plus for this one - I can make a good amount of nachos on the tray, just enough for me, instead of using the oven. Saves energy, I don’t overeat, and putting them on aluminum foil makes cleaning up easy.
