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It was one of the few models that browned the top of bread at lower settings. When we turned the dial up, brown quickly turned to black on the edges of the toast and bagel. You have to watch this toaster carefully unless you prefer your toast on the dark side. It’s also very, very expensive, leaving you to decide if you’d rather have a pop-up toaster or multi-function toaster oven for the same price. While there is a four-slice model, the price is higher and it still only has a single lever and set of controls, making for somewhat more difficult handling. The crumb tray was deep enough to hold big crumbs, and the toaster has adjustable rear feet to ensure it sits level on your counter.
Enabling push notifications also allows Tovala to tell you when your food is done and ready to take out of the oven. I first thought that was a little gimmicky, but between keeping the boat afloat and parenting two kiddos, my wife and I are rarely standing by waiting for the oven to ding. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions.
Home Toaster Oven #3:
We set the toaster on the medium heat level and toasted a slice of white bread. We checked for evenness on both sides of the bread, as well as for burn marks. If you’re using smaller slices you’ll need to be careful when removing from the Cuisinart Classic CPT-180 toaster, as the low lifting height doesn’t leave much room to grab when your toast is finished. That being said, this is a somewhat reasonably priced toaster with four slots which makes it perfect for a family. The toaster has just one slot, even though it is long enough to fit two slices of bread. If you have two pieces of longer bread – such as sourdough – you might not be able to fit more than one slice in the slot at a time.
Look for dual control panels if you are purchasing a 4-slice model so you can toast to various states of doneness simultaneously. The waffles, however, were hands-down the best of all the toasters I tried. I used the defrost setting, which accomplished a true 2 and a true 4 both times I toasted the Eggos—perfectly cooked through with just the right amount of gold or brown on the respective shade settings. For waffle makers who can see past aesthetics , the Sencor is a solid pick, delivering consistent results on frozen items. While the toaster doesn’t have an assist button for lifting toast, the bread came free easily, with the smaller gluten-free slices shooting into the air like in a “Tom & Jerry” cartoon.
Toaster oven specs
Although our previous two-slot pick, the Oster Jelly Bean (an older version of the Oster 2-Slice Toaster), still browned bread better than most other budget toasters, it paled in comparison with the Cuisinart. Despite having slots that are deeper than those of the Black + Decker and Hamilton Beach toasters we tested, the Jelly Bean still left pure white crowns on otherwise nicely toasted bread. These white tops get even bigger if you forget to push the bread down as far as it will go in the slot—something we found irritating and hard to remember. When the second batch starts, turn the heat down half a level from your normal setting.
We sent toasters to our home testers and also tested them in our Lab using various types of breads, including bagels, waffles, and more. We tested 20 four-slice toasters in our Lab in addition to over a dozen two-slice toasters. Each toaster was rated on design, performance, features, ease of cleaning, and overall value. Our testers then offered additional insights on each toaster's strengths and weaknesses. The results varied widely, with ratings ranging from 2.4 all the way up to 5.0. Today's toasters come in all shapes and sizes—from two-slice to four-slice to long-slice to toaster ovens—and most toasters now feature a variety of settings to meet your needs.
What to consider when choosing the best toaster for you
While all these toasters did their jobs, and I honestly liked some of them, I ultimately felt they weren’t the best investment compared to the toasters I included in my final picks. Here are the six toasters that, for some reason or another, missed the mark in my testing process. I’d used my beat-up wedding-registry toaster every day for years without thinking twice about whether there was something better out there. That is, until I went on a quest to determine the best toasters on the market right now, and brought home 13 top-rated options to put to the test. After thoroughly researching toasters of all kinds and spending the better part of a weekend pitting them against each other, I have some pretty strong opinions. Bagels from our toaster testing, representing the range of doneness each toaster achieved on a midrange setting.
Users have noted that this toaster is a little slower at making toast than others they've used, but it toasts much more evenly, so they don’t mind the slight wait. Donna Currie is a food writer and blogger specializing in recipes and kitchen gadgets. She covers kitchen tools and gadgets for The Spruce Eats and is the author of Make Ahead Bread. French door designed - When the door is open, it does not occupy the space of the desktop, and the operation is more convenient. Our testers paid attention to how long each slice took to toast, how evenly the toast looked and how crisp.
It’s compact at less than a foot long, but it gets points for still fitting bagels and the larger slices of white bread. It would nest easily in a drawer, which is good, as the side showed smudges and the thin metal skin makes dents seem inevitable. You can also get accessories like a warming tray and a sandwich cage insert for making toasted sandwiches, something we didn’t see in the other toasters we tested. You can even make a toasted cheese sandwich, though we’re talking about a single slice, not a piled-high American-style grilled cheese.
Gorgeous looks aside, the Alessi Plissé Toaster is neat and compact while still making a statement. It has two slots, and there are six browning levels for perfect toast every time. Simplicity is key here, so while you will not have large dials and Smeg-style funky button controls, there is everything you need to defrost, reheat, or cancel your setting. The levers have some added lift, which is great for pop tarts and other smaller toasted goods, but it doesn't have the added lift of some other toasters, so it's not the best for seriously small slices. It's easy to select your chosen setting, be it Bagel, Reheat, or Defrost. It's also possible to choose from 12 brownness settings, with up to 6 notches as well as halves for the extra picky members of your family.
A thoughtful "a bit more" button gives your food another minute of cooking time if it's needed without having to reset the program. The race for the overall best toaster oven was a true photo finish between the Panasonic FlashXpress and Breville's capable Mini Smart Oven. Both toasted four slices of bread evenly, with doneness presets that deliver on their promise. The Breville, like the FlashExpress, also held its temperature well and preheated quickly. An air fryer toaster oven is great for someone who loves toasting just as much as they love air frying.
The rounded white plastic toaster effectively fits four bagel halves yet takes up the least amount of counter space of any four-slice toaster we tested. It is as compact as the name suggests, equivalent in size to the two-slice models from Oster and Dualit. If you’re buying with sustainability as a top priority, and you have the counter space, you should probably consider a toaster oven instead. They typically last longer, which may be in part because the heating elements are enclosed or better protected by metal guards to prevent damage.
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