If I had known then what I know now about counter-top appliances like toaster ovens, I could have saved myself a lot of time, energy, and cuss words. The controls are easy to understand, with knobs to set the cooking method, temperature, and time. Depending on the lighting, sometimes it was difficult to read the settings since they are printed with silver ink on a shiny black surface. At 15 inches high, 23.4 inches wide, and 18 inches deep, this is a fairly large oven that eats quite a bit of countertop space.
Some of the temperature controls are more imprecise than others which may be a nuisance depending on how and what you plan to cook. The Balmuda can only be set in increments of 50 degrees, for instance, while the Panasonic FlashXpress in increments of 35 degrees. This didn’t bother me too much, but it does mean you can’t hit a precise 400 and thus may have to adjust for certain foods. In the Jamaican patty test, all of the ovens heated the frozen meat pies through the center, but the Breville and Balmuda produced the best browning on the outer pastry shell. The hand pie that emerged from the Balmuda Oven (see below) was nearly overcooked (and perhaps it would be for some folks) but that’s just how I like mine.
Convection mode uses a fan to circulate air during baking or roasting.
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The Breville Mini Smart Oven, GE and Hamilton Beach are good examples of broil-friendly ovens. The slightly more expensive Breville does sport a few functions that the Panasonic doesn’t, the most important being broil and convection modes. Breville’s Mini Smart oven has three levels at which you can slide a tray in, and the dials and settings allow for more precision than most ovens. 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 oven is extremely quiet as it operates with a dBA reading of 50.4; we virtually couldn’t hear it when it was running. The tray in the bottom of a Hamilton Beach toaster oven collects crumbs and other food debris to help prevent mess. You should empty this once every week or two depending on how frequently you use the appliance. If you want a simple toaster oven with a couple of nice conveniences, consider this compact model. The length of time the toaster oven is covered by its manufacturer for defects or repairs. Chances are your beloved air fryer doesn’t look as good or work as well as it used.
The back corners are the hardest bits to clean, but they’re also the least likely places food would spatter. The process of cleaning this oven is pretty much the same as cleaning a regular oven, albeit a bit easier, since I had it on a countertop and could turn it as I needed. The worst mess I made was when a wily pizza eluded my grasp, bounced off the back wall, and spewed toppings onto the floor of the oven. The crumb tray caught most of the mess, and the walls wiped clean with no fuss, thanks to the nonstick coating inside the oven. Of course, since rotisserie is in this product’s name, I had to test out that function—on birds up to 5 pounds, which is the oven’s limit. The most difficult thing about cooking a rotisserie chicken is tying it and getting it balanced on the spit so it can spin properly.
As for accessories, this oven comes with a baking pan, oven rack, and slide-out crumb tray. For this metric, we gave the Easy Reach its highest marks for ease of cleaning. Likewise, cleaning out the oven’s interior is a breeze — another benefit of the roll-top door. When open, the oven is completely accessible, both visually and spatially, which allows fingers, rags or scrubbers to easily find their way into every corner. The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice is able to do most basic cooking tasks well and does so at a great price. You can’t fit huge portions in this compact oven, but what does fit inside will be cooked or baked consistently better than what you’d expect from such an inexpensive oven.
Some hamilton beach toaster ovens have preset programs for common foods, such as bagels and pizza. These are especially useful when you’re new to the world of toaster ovens and aren’t sure of the cooking times for your favorite foods. Generous size can hold 6 slices of toast, a 9 x 11-inch baking pan, or even a 12-inch pizza. Roll-top door makes it easy to clean, reach, or quickly transfer hot food.
That means that every time you’re using your toaster oven instead of your full-size oven, you’re cutting your energy consumption by a little over a third. You’ll also want to think about what you’ll be using your toaster oven for most often. If you like toast with your coffee each morning, prioritize a toaster oven with a precise preset. If you like to broil things like hamburgers, make sure you get a toaster oven with a high top rack position just 2 or 3 inches underneath the heating elements.