Colin West McDonald/CNET
I set out to cook a wide variety of common toaster oven fodder. With the exception of the toast tests, where I looked at each toaster oven's individual settings for light, medium and dark toast, I used standardized temperature and cook times and followed the recommendations on the box for whatever I was cooking, wherever possible.
Toasting capabilities: Speed and consistency
Making toast is one of the critical tasks for a toaster. I mean, it's right there in the name. I hauled in a whole lot of bread to see how fast and evenly each oven made this breakfast and sandwich staple.
Most low-end toaster ovens use a built-in kitchen timer to set the broiling, toasting and cooking time. Typically, those timers include a couple of preset options for toasting: medium toast, dark toast and -- in some cases -- a light setting, barely toasted bread, too. Higher-end models with an LCD will usually let you dial into a specific doneness level when you're toasting. You'll typically get about six or seven settings to choose from with those, each with preprogrammed toasting times. That's more precise than turning a timer knob and worth it if you're a stickler for the perfect shade of golden brown.
For my purposes, I toasted four slices of thin, white sandwich bread in each toaster oven on medium. This test aimed to see how evenly each oven toasts in all areas of the oven and how well-calibrated the medium toast setting is. Evenness is especially important when you're making breakfast for a group. Ideally, you'll want them all to come out looking as close to identical as possible.
I toasted four slices of white bread on medium to test how evenly each toaster cooks and the calibration of its doneness setting. David Watsky/CNET
I also tested two pieces of bread on the lowest doneness setting (light) and the highest (dark), to see how well these presets were calibrated. After each of the three toast tests, I photographed the results and made sure to let the toaster oven cool to room temperature before testing again.
For overall evenness, the results were surprisingly uniform across the board, with the exception of the Cruxgg, which toasted extremely unevenly. The Hamilton Beach, Panasonic's FlashXpress and Breville Mini Smart Oven were among the top finishers, with mostly even cooking and a solid medium color. The Balmuda also toasted four slices of bread evenly.
The Panasonic FlashXpress' well-calibrated dark toast setting delivered a proper dark without burning the bread. David Watsky/CNET
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