Looks like a spammer bumped this thread and then had his post wiped. I saw it at the top this AM. If not, if anyone is looking into toasters, I HEARTILY recommend this model, Amazon tells me I bought mine in April of 2012 and I use it 5+ times a week, or more.
On sale today, $215! The red model is quite fetching, but I think I’d go for stainless.
And the older model, the one I have, is all the way down to $165. The difference between the two models is not entirely clear to me from the descriptions. I guess the newer one has a light, and some sort of a slow-cooking function for braises. Not really worth the extra money unless you want it in fire-engine red.
The breville air is totally awesome, and i highly recommend it.
Breville +1
I bought a Breville Air about a year ago. I think Ive used my regular oven once since then. The Breville handles everything your oven can ( size permitting of course, it is smaller ) and much more. I could lose my full sized range and not miss it at all. I cooked a 5 lb bird in my Breville just today. So unless you’re cooking something with a 15" depth, like a very large pizza, you’re probably good to go.
Wish I had counter space for this kind of thing.
+1
I’m jealous of you Breville people.
I live in manhattan, you MAKE counter space for the Breville, son.
We love ours, but note that these don’t last forever (even if they are better than the rest of the junk sold). The convection in ours stopped working after 4 years, though the rest is fine & we’ll keep using it until it goes.
Diego
Yeah, that’s a moving part, a fan. I’d contact Breville and see if they’ll fix it.
Yeah, my counter space is pretty tight, and the Breville takes a big chunk of it… but it’s worth it, because it does so much stuff.
The kind of things that it can do, like air fry or dehydrate food… that’s stuff which is cool, but which I couldn’t dedicate the space to single purpose machines for.
The nice thing about the Breville is that it does all those things in one unit, so while it takes up counter space, it ends up being a decent use of that space.
The fan only costs $20, but getting the unit apart to reach / fix it looks like a right pain.
This thread boggles my head. What does a toaster oven do that your oven can’t? Make toast, sure, but toasters are cheap.
I have had a Breville toaster oven long before they tried to cash in on this air thing. I like it, because its easier and quucker to fire that up than the oven. But a full size oven still bakes and broils far better because its better at heat retention and has a larger, more powerful element for broiling.
Convection is fine, but not a life changer. Anyone who doesn’t know, “air fryers” are just oddly shaped convection ovens. Breville just changed the marketing from convection to air. I have the exact same oven as the “air” one.
What exactly is a very expensive toaster oven doing that you can’t do better with a real oven? No one should be jealous of them, but yeah it’s handy tool if I want to toast a couple of buns or reheat a pizza without using a full size oven.
I think you answered your own question. Mainly it feels easier to use. I would also think that it uses less power being smaller for those of us who have all electric.
It heats up faster, doesn’t heat up your entire house in the summer, and has much more precise controls than my oven, including timing as well. I know some ovens also support that stuff but mine is just an analog gas dial. It also heats extremely evenly, even discounting convection.
I know that stuff, that’s why I have one. But my point is that it doesn’t do anything my oven doesn’t besides convection, and you can get ovens that do that. In fact, at broiling it kind of sucks at. For bread it’s great, but if I need to blacken chiles or something, it just can’t handle it like my ovens broiler can.
It used to be the Wirecutter’s top pick, but no longer is because the door leaks heat and the price. They are definitely nice to have for certain things, but not a necessity.
Of course it’s not a necessity, but it’s darn convenient. Like others here, I almost never turn on my big oven, and I have a damn nice one. Baking is the only time that we do that, because the small toaster oven doesn’t do a great job of that. Heck, my big oven is mostly used as storage for various baking sheets and roasting pans, so it’s also a pain to clear it out to use.
Basically, the use ratio is like 10:1 or more, so from a day-to-day perspective, the toaster oven is a more important appliance to me.
Mines mainly replaced my microwave. I need anything reheated, I just put it in the toaster oven. When my Breville eventually breaks, I want something smaller. It’s too big for most of my uses.
Microwave is good for some things, oven for others. How are you going to heat up frozen creamed spinach in a toaster oven?
Breville does sell smaller models, one of those might work better for you.
I don’t have a convection oven, so that gives this toaster oven a capability that my normal oven doesn’t have.
But beyond that, a toaster oven is good for things like grilling a hotdog, that a full over isn’t really practical for.
Then, on top of that, this thing can dehydrate stuff at very low temperatures. My oven’s lowest temperature is 200 degrees, and this toaster oven can do 85.