Great Toaster, Decent Mini-Oven, June 27, 2010

Like just about everyone else in the free world, I grew up with a GE Toast-R-Oven. I cooked everything from toast (of course) to pizza bagels (a great discovery back in the 70s) to TV dinners and even baked fish in it. When the one I received as a gift when I bought my first house finely gave up the ghost, I replaced it with a $100 Hamilton Beach tabletop convection oven could bake a whole loaf of bread, two pies or a meatloaf. It even had a rotisserie with a spit you could impale a chicken on, though I never tested this feature. I used it for several years, and it did everything you would expect of a compact toaster oven- except make toast. The burners were just too far apart.Enter the Breville. Rather than the mechanical timer and temperature control of the Hamilton Beach (and the GE before it) this unit has fully electronic control that promises to be more accurate in both functions. It can handle (they say) a 12" pizza, and 4 slices of toast. So how does all this work...

I'm not one to write reviews, but this toaster is worth the time investment! We bought this toaster about a month ago. The whole family (inc. the kids) fell in love with it from the first time we ate toasted bread out of it, but we decided to hold off writing the review for "further testing". Initially, we had a Black and Decker for a bit less than 13 yrs till the toast lever caught fire (literally) and stopped functioning properly. So we needed a replacement. Our criteria was a small toaster/oven, that is not complicated to use, does not offer convection cooking (I already have two full size convection ovens), does not have the annoying ticker timer and that was about $50 - $70. I searched among many brands, unfortunately, many either were simple but offered the ticker timer OR offered convection baking which I know I would not use. The day I came across The Breville toaster and read the reviews, I was impressed with the features, but not the price. The reviews were so positive...

It's a shame you have to spend over $150 for a good toaster oven, but if the cost is not an issue, this is an excellent one. This is not a convection oven, but is exactly what I wanted and it fits perfectly where the cheap one it replaced was.This oven is well made, the door opens smoothly, the rack comes out easily. The pan that comes with it is heavy and enameled, not cheap sheet metal. The control system is excellent. The display is illuminated while setting or cooking, but dims out when not in use. I found it very easy to use. Toasting is a single touch and it compensates for the hot oven with multiple toast cycles. I've used the bake cycle and the muffins turned out great. It remembers your last setting for each cycle, so if you determine the 'perfect' setting for your favorite bagels or pizza, it's preset and ready to start when selecting the cycle. The crumb tray pulls out the front and is very easy to clean. This is vastly superior to out the back or from the bottom...