Recommend a Toaster Oven

S

Sue J

Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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Feb 28, 2007
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We have a Cuisinart Toaster Oven that we love. It's a TOB-30 and it's been great. But in cleaning the interior recently the non-stick coating along the sides and back is coming off in flakes and chunks. It's about 3.5 years old, so it's out of warranty.

So I looked online to see if this is a common problem and most of the comments on this toaster oven are horrible and scary. No one else has the non-stick coating coming off like we do. Instead the reviewers are talking about electrical problems, buzzing noises, electrical arcing and being unable to shut the thing off, even when you turn the dial to OFF. They also mention overheating and fires.

Scary stuff and now we're afraid to leave it plugged in. The outlet that it's plugged into is in a very cramped spot so leaving it unplugged until we need to use it is not a workable solution.

So it's time to get a new toaster oven. I'm looking online and so many brands and models are getting horrible reviews. These are user reviews where people write that their toaster oven worked for 3 months and then died, or burned toast until the unit caught on fire, or was so hard to use that people gave up and returned it.

I almost bought an inexpensive Black and Decker at WalMart today and figured I'd better come home and read reviews and after that I decided to keep looking.

So do you have a reliable toaster oven that you love? We need one that makes toast and doesn't catch on fire. We also use the one we have for heating up small items, a piece of pizza, melting cheese on a sandwich. Every once in a while I bake something like a piece of fish.

I'd like to keep this under $100. I'm thinking that the reliability on these is short term and this is something you replace, not repair.
 
We have used Black and Decker for years. Used GE before, and they sold out to B&D.

I like the oven features, but not real sold on the toaster. our older models worked more like a toaster and popped open when toast was done. Now most use a timer you twist and it stays on for x minutes. We burn a lot of toast! Seems like things toast at different speeds.

As an oven, this one is great. it is big enough to cook a meal for two. We use that feature.
 
I recently replaced a Toaster Oven (a very old one) and the new choices were miserable. After checking many stores, it appears that quite a few brands may be made by only a few factories and they often share similar features. The "feature" that was a deal breaker for me was the setting for toast darkness that is in fact a clicking timer. You have to re-set it every time you make toast, so no fine tuning to get it just the way you like. And worst of all, it clicks loudly as it toasts.

I finally found a Black and Decker "Classic" TR0962 which has a separate control for toast darkness and a push button for on/off. No clicking. It's worked reliably since I got it. My old Black and Decker lasted over 20 years, so I'm hopeful this will also be useful for a long time.
 
I bought the first toaster oven of my life about four years ago. It's a cheap Hamilton Beach model that works just fine for everything I've tried with it. No problems.
 
We use a Black and Decker that we got for $1. I like it because it mounts under the cabinet on a special bracket, leaving more counter space. It does the job, but in general it's rubbish.
 
I just bought an Oster at Costco for about $50 and so far, I love it. It has a convection oven feature that really cooks the food evenly and the toast feature makes about the best toast I've ever had. Unfortunately, the first time I used it I forgot how hot the door can get and now I have a second degree burn on my finger to remind me! <sigh>
 
Sue J said:
We have a Cuisinart Toaster Oven that we love. It's a TOB-30 and it's been great. But in cleaning the interior recently the non-stick coating along the sides and back is coming off in flakes and chunks. It's about 3.5 years old, so it's out of warranty.

So I looked online to see if this is a common problem and most of the comments on this toaster oven are horrible and scary. No one else has the non-stick coating coming off like we do. Instead the reviewers are talking about electrical problems, buzzing noises, electrical arcing and being unable to shut the thing off, even when you turn the dial to OFF. They also mention overheating and fires.

Scary stuff and now we're afraid to leave it plugged in. The outlet that it's plugged into is in a very cramped spot so leaving it unplugged until we need to use it is not a workable solution.

So it's time to get a new toaster oven. I'm looking online and so many brands and models are getting horrible reviews. These are user reviews where people write that their toaster oven worked for 3 months and then died, or burned toast until the unit caught on fire, or was so hard to use that people gave up and returned it.

I almost bought an inexpensive Black and Decker at WalMart today and figured I'd better come home and read reviews and after that I decided to keep looking.

So do you have a reliable toaster oven that you love? We need one that makes toast and doesn't catch on fire. We also use the one we have for heating up small items, a piece of pizza, melting cheese on a sandwich. Every once in a while I bake something like a piece of fish.

I'd like to keep this under $100. I'm thinking that the reliability on these is short term and this is something you replace, not repair.
Click to expand...

We have what I call a real cheapee--about $40 my wife says. She got it at Linens 'n Things who are not going out of business. Bed, Bath and Beyond carry about the same products. She uses it a lot. We haven't done toast in it lately. Things like that I like to keep in the low price arena and then you don't feel too bad about just scrapping it if something goes haywire.
 
JOHNNIE36 said:
We have what I call a real cheapee--about $40 my wife says. She got it at Linens 'n Things who are not going out of business. Bed, Bath and Beyond carry about the same products. She uses it a lot. We haven't done toast in it lately. Things like that I like to keep in the low price arena and then you don't feel too bad about just scrapping it if something goes haywire.
Click to expand...


Sorry for the typo. They ARE going out of business.
 
We have used a Cuisinart Toaster Oven (TOB-165) for 2-3 years now and are very happy with it. It gets used twice a day, every day we are home -- toast for breakfast and everything from Baked Potatoes to Broiled Steaks in the evening. We rarely use our large oven any more.

We recently purchased a Oster 6-Slice Toaster Oven for use in our Roadtrek. And I am very pleased with it also. The main consideration for this model was it only weighs 15 lbs. It remains to be seen if it can withstand the pounding that the road is giving it -- it has been about 10,000 miles so far without incidence. (Note that it is large enough for a Large Frozen Pizza.)

In any event, thinking "short-term" is probably the way to go.
 
I have a DeLonghi Convection Rotisserie counter top oven that I bought to replace 3 Black and Decker toaster ovens that broke. The toast button broke on each of the B&D and I finally got tired of B&D charging me $5 to replace it. They obviously had a design flaw.

I lose my DeLonghi a lot to bake small items, toast and broil. I haven't used the rotisserie. I do use the convection part on some items, love that it speeds up the cooking. I paid about $99 at Sam's club a year or two ago.

I only use the regular oven when I'm baking something that won't fit in the toaster oven.
 
KB said:
I have a DeLonghi Convection Rotisserie counter top oven that I bought to replace 3 Black and Decker toaster ovens that broke. The toast button broke on each of the B&D and I finally got tired of B&D charging me $5 to replace it. They obviously had a design flaw.

I lose my DeLonghi a lot to bake small items, toast and broil. I haven't used the rotisserie. I do use the convection part on some items, love that it speeds up the cooking. I paid about $99 at Sam's club a year or two ago.

I only use the regular oven when I'm baking something that won't fit in the toaster oven.
Click to expand...

My parents have a Black & D with the same flaw. Has worked well for years (5?, 7?) except for the one button bit it after a couple years. Just turn the knob to use the other option, but now have to manually turn it off. No idea what they paid for it. I guess I'd buy one assuming they've fixed the design flaw of the 'toast' button. Can't recall what model it was or easily find one that looks like it.


-CC
 
Growing Older,
That is the same problem we have. Would replace the one we have if I could find a good inexpensive replacement that worked like the old one.
 
I've never met a toaster oven I trusted. :p Fire hazard!!!!
I invested in a convection/microwave/exhaust combo from GE at least 10 years ago. It was pricey but it still runs and I never burned my hands using it. It sits nicely above the stove in the exhaust hood opening.
 
KB said:
I have a DeLonghi Convection Rotisserie counter top oven that I bought to replace 3 Black and Decker toaster ovens that broke. The toast button broke on each of the B&D and I finally got tired of B&D charging me $5 to replace it. They obviously had a design flaw.

I lose my DeLonghi a lot to bake small items, toast and broil. I haven't used the rotisserie. I do use the convection part on some items, love that it speeds up the cooking. I paid about $99 at Sam's club a year or two ago.

I only use the regular oven when I'm baking something that won't fit in the toaster oven.
Click to expand...

We use a DeLonghi Convection oven as well, we keep it on the front porch, LOL. During the summer it doesn't heat up the kitchen and it stays there over winter because we're too lazy to bring it in. Love the convection setting to speed up the cooking process. This isn't a large oven but works great for the two of us.
 
Hmm, I just heard from someone whose toaster oven spontaneously combusted almost taking the house out. This person unplugs their toaster oven when not in use, because the firefighters who showed up said this happens a lot. From an engineering perspective I could see how the thermostat or heat control could get clogged with grease or something and stick on full. Then a pile of crumbs or grease could fuel the blaze. I'm not usually paranoid about such things, but becoming more so as I get older :)

I own the absolute best toaster oven. Expensive at about $100 but once you've used it you'll never make toast any other way. The toast comes out with just the right balance of crunchy but not dry, due to the infrared heating. It's the Panasonic NB-G100P:

Panasonic Consumer Electronics - Toaster Ovens

It also has a mechanical master on/off switch which presumably removes the need to unplug it for safety. And because it uses computer cooking programs instead of a thermostat, I doubt there would be much spontaneous fire danger anyway.
 
Thanks for all the responses. As brands were suggested I looked them up and read reviews.

Most of these get mixed reviews. Some people love them and get a quality unit, others get lemons and take them back or put up with broken buttons, burnt toast, glass doors shattering and scary fire hazards.

I looked up the Panasonic that free4now suggested and tried to find where to buy it. Unfortunately it's discontinued and out of stock. Sigh...... It looks like one of the few good ones.

For now we've plugged our Cuisinart into a power strip so that we can turn it on to use it and then turn off the power strip when it's not in use. But we had to move the refrigerator over an inch to [SIZE=-1]accommodate[/SIZE] the large power strip plug and it makes that side of the kitchen look awkward. Better than it looking crispy/burnt.

My sister has the same Cuisinart toaster oven and when I mentioned this to her she said hers has been making an intermittent singing noise when it's turned off. Not a good sign. But hers is right next to it's outlet and she can easily plug it in to use it.

On the IMPORTANT SAFEGUARDS page of the instructions of ours it says-
#5 UNPLUG FROM OUTLET WHEN NOT IN USE AND BEFORE CLEANING.
#14 WHEN NOT IN USE, ALWAYS UNPLUG THE UNIT.

Yeah, I get that now. But how many people really do that?

For now I will look for a power strip with a flatter plug and I'll keep an eye out for a quality toaster oven. So far an Oster looks like a possibility. Whatever we end up with I'll still use the power strip.

Thanks for the advise. I'd love to hear from a firefighter on what they think of these.
 
We found that our regular oven works better than any toaster oven and it saves us from wasting counter space on another appliance.
 
...hers has been making an intermittent singing noise when it's turned off. Not a good sign.
Click to expand...

This is OK as long as long it doesn't sound like Celine Dion.
 
freebird5825 said:
I've never met a toaster oven I trusted. :p Fire hazard!!!!
I invested in a convection/microwave/exhaust combo from GE at least 10 years ago. It was pricey but it still runs and I never burned my hands using it. It sits nicely above the stove in the exhaust hood opening.
Click to expand...

Like you, I am one of those who does not use a toaster oven. There is always the potential fire hazard, which worries me, too. But more than that, it is just one more appliance on the countertop and I really don't have the room for it.

I do unplug all of my countertop appliances when not in use, except for the microwave.

I have a toaster, an oven, and a microwave to perform the functions of a toaster oven, if needed.
 
Sue J: In the meantime can you put a switch between the toaster and the wall plug and just manually turn the switch off when not in use (without having to unplug it)? I found some at Big Lots and they are pretty simple but we use them to turn off things like the charger for the Cell Phone or the power supply to the Notebook when they are not in use to eliminate the small drain of electricity. In our case we did it to eliminate pulling the plugs and then having to reinsert them in inconvenient locations (the switch is much easier to use).
 
OAG said:
Sue J: In the meantime can you put a switch between the toaster and the wall plug and just manually turn the switch off when not in use (without having to unplug it)? I found some at Big Lots and they are pretty simple but we use them to turn off things like the charger for the Cell Phone or the power supply to the Notebook when they are not in use to eliminate the small drain of electricity. In our case we did it to eliminate pulling the plugs and then having to reinsert them in inconvenient locations (the switch is much easier to use).
Click to expand...

Yes, the power strip I plugged it into has an on/off switch, so we're now turning off the power when it's not in use.

Our house is from 1955 and most of the kitchen is original. We had to add some new outlets and new circuits after we moved in in 1983 because the entire kitchen was on 2 circuits and one of those powered the outlets for the refrigerator, microwave, toaster and TV. If we used the microwave and toaster at the same time we would blow a fuse. Or if we added an electric frying pan or coffee maker it would blow.

In 1993 we added whole house air conditioning and had the city increase our capacity. We had an electrician change the fuse box to circuit breakers. So the kitchen now has 4 circuits. But the old original outlets all seem to be in the wrong places. They end up hidden behind the things we use all the time. The switch for the exhaust fan is behind the microwave so to turn on the fan you have to use a long wooden spoon.

Someday........we'll redo the kitchen. We've been busy paying for college.
 
I searched pretty hard for one I liked and ended up with a DeLonghi.
I like the tempered glass door (with no cheesy tin surrounding it), the
fact that the controls are not affected by opening the door, and the
digital controls (which make it is to reproduce certain cooking
procedures, like the setting that gets your toast just right).

They say Black&Decker stuff sets your house on fire ...
 
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