I'm left wondering why absolutely any toaster I could buy here would work fine but it seems so hard in the US. You can get fancier features on more expensive models but even the cheapest, most basic, type will make good toast. We've had several over the years, from cheapest to quite dear, and all worked well.

My issue with toasters isn't the quality of the toast but the quality of the toaster, the disposable nature of something that quits working after too short a time.

Our last one lasted 20 years and was only put in the recycling because the slots were too narrow for DHs chunky bread slicing. Not because it broke down. Seems there's a market opportunity for someone in the US. Toasters are ubiquitous, cheap and reliable here.

It's the chunked homemade bread and bagels and all that get us in the weeds. And I have had precisely three toasters as an adult. The most excellent, cheap B&D TO that lost its heat regulation after 20 years, the perfectly good cheapie 2 slot toaster that made flying toast until my father fixed it, but only took commercially sliced bread, both of which made great toast, and the loss leader TO that is too big and makes okay but not perfect toast. Add the cheap air fry oven which did almost everything but not that well, and did not actually toast though it tried, and the new counter top oven with air fry which was reviewed as making perfect toast, but so far has only made toast with overly crunchy, slightly charred edges and uneven browning, at best, and hard, colorless and cold at its worst.

Floral, it may be that you just have really good toaster luck, or I might be pickier.

I have high hopes for the cute new toaster. It's limited. Even on it's listing it shows badly toasted bagels, but as I said, I've been able to coax a moderately good bagel out of the Breville. Properly toasted bagels remind me of my grandpa, which is a very nice feeling. It's not really about the food.

@plllog, re: Krups small appliances - I possibly could have found a way to get a Krups, but decided to give Zojirushi a try since I like their water pot and rice cooker. So far, I've been very happy with their toaster oven with the proviso that I don't use it to make toasted slices of bread since that's not something I eat. In the past, I kept a toaster for my parent's use when they visited me.

Funny about the expensive Dualit producing bad toast. Glad I returned it.

Success! The cute toaster came today. I had taken out of the freezer a few slices of good commercial sourdough in case we had sandwiches for lunch. It went into the freezer very fresh, and when defrosted on the cutting board, it was similarly moist and "fresh"-like. The new toaster warns what I'd been finding with the Breville, that very fresh and moist bread might take more toasting. I didn't do them side by side, but I broke a long slice of the sourdough in half and did half in the Cutie, and half in the CO (countertop oven). The latter had the same issues as before, but this time the edges didn't char. I don't know if that was the bread choice or removing the bit of cardboard. It didn't actually toast much at all, even with flipping and retoasting. It had the same flavor problems as before. It was a bit gummy in the middle and didn't taste toasty, or like much of anything.

I read all the instructions for the Cutie. Nothing you wouldn't have guessed, but a cool feature I'll be trying is a button for frozen bread that will warm it first to defrost and then toast it. Cool. Part of the appeal is really wide slots. I wondered how that would work for this bread which would have been fine in the old flying toast toaster. There are holders on both sides of the slot, not just one, that close around the bread and hold it n the middle. Cool. I set the darkness dial to the middle. The toast was warm but not really toasted. Put it in again with the darkness bumped up and it came out toasted. Not perfectly, but toasted. The outside side wasn't as toasted as the inside side. The toasteder side had kind of swirly imperfection in color. But the texture was toast! The flavor was toast! And the nice sourdough flavor came through, where it was absent from the CO. It was hot. It was firmed up like toast but not crunchy-crunchy like the CO when it got the toast somewhat toasted. The crust had some crunch without being hard or charred or cracker-y.

Basically, Cutie is a toaster which toasts. I don't need absolute perfection. I'm perfectly happy, instead, just to have toast that has the taste and texture of toast. I feel like Floral with a new toaster that makes toast. :) And it's pretty small, two standard length slots, not much counterspace. Really light weight so no biggie at all to move as desired, next to the seating for breakfasts, or in the appliance zone for sandwiches. Happy dance time!

That is rather inspiring, even to one who doesn’t eat much toast. It sure is a cute little toaster.

Hmm. My toaster is full of cement dust, and was unlovely before that. Now I’m actually getting kind of interested in the finer points of toasters!

make sure you test the setting/switch for bagels ... how many times in a row you can toast bagels without a significant change in the result. I have to wait about 30 seconds between bagel slices otherwise the next batch of 2 bagels doesn't get as toasty.

Sorry if i am being captain obvious here ...

Dave, I got a bagel and an English muffin (stackable kind, not Thomas's kind) out of the freezer after the good sourdough toast. More tests tomorrow. Are you saying you need to cool down the toaster before the next bagel? That sounds like it uses a heat sensor and the bulk of the bagel doesn't let it cool enough to not be swayed by residual heat. Or something like that.

I'm glad you've found one that you like. I am with Flora here - I was going to suggest you bite the bullet and buy one from England. Any bread, any toastiness!

The Zwilling recipes are for things to make with toasted breads. Like club sandwich, feta and fig toast, eggs benedict, ect.

https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-toaster-t20-t35-vista

I feel the call of vintage toaster and this one seems super cool as well as technically clever

https://amateurist.substack.com/p/are-old-toasters-better-than-modern

More historical and technical detail

Is it true that modern toasters’ ”toastedness settings” merely use dumb timers behind the whiz-bang LCD panels and touch controls?!

I don't know. The Sunbeam article sounds very familiar. :) It did need fixing often, but ours had automatic down, pop up automatically when done. No lever. Just a small button to turn to adjust browning, and push to pop up on command. And the bread did sometimes get caught on the edge and had to be helped out.

plllog, how was the toasting performance on the old Sunbeam? Was it more even across the slice, or more consistent from slice to slice, than other toasters?

HEY EVERYONE (yes, yelling for attention - hey, you try yelling in italics, it takes talent) I have a fun and educational idea.

Post a photo of a typical toasted slice of bread from your toaster or toaster oven, whatever you use to toast, and tell us what brand and model it is? Let us roast your toast.

Let your toast go cold while you document it. ... I'll have to think about that.

JL, I'm not even sure it was a Sunbeam. I have consulted The Elephant and who said, “Not a clue.” If you find one with no lever, that's probably the brand. I never evaluated the toast. There was a tray on the counter over my father's shoulder, holding the toaster and coffeepot. It was just there. Put in bread, get out toast. A revelation, at some preoperational age, that one could flip the half piece of sourdough to make it face the other way. No issue with the toastedness not matching. I daresay I remember the flavor of sourdough toast, though that has been reinforced in adulthood, but toast was toast and I never questioned nor analyzed it before the toaster became unfixable and the quest for a decent toaster began.

Extrapolating, however, I'd guess yes, both nicely and evenly toasted across the bread. Also, hot, not too crunchy, not limp or gummy. Toasty. Didn't compare head to head across toasters, and know more the lacks of them than the virtues of the ideal. Bad are not a good, all over toasty brown, rather, streaky or pale. Good has no char, excusing bent bits, especially on a torn edge, which stick out and get into the coils—can't blame the toaster when wonky bread is at fault. Toast pops up enough to remove (extra lift lever designed to aid this is fine, just some are more designed to burn fingers). Toast stays in the slots when popped (no flying toast).

There was a small chain of casual restaurants in L.A., owned by a Mr. Shipman, who hated cold toast. He put a toaster at every larger table, or between two two-tops. Every one. So you coukd make your own toast, your own way, and enjoy it hot out of the toaster.

IC and Floral, I think the winning replacement was English. Possibly called Emerson? Rare to find, here. I remember questing for replacements since they weren't durable, but made good toast. Can't just import them because of the difference in electricity.

Oh c'mon, it takes a second to snap a photo. You can even photograph the toasted bread in the process of extraction.

If it had no lever, it may have been that Sunbeam, which had drop-in & automatic eject triggered by bimetallic expansion and the clever linkage with 1:175 motion amplification.

There was a point when designers reached maximum cleverness with mechanical systems, exemplified by the deathless IBM Selectric typewriter. Then everything became electronic or, as seems to be the case with modern toasters, our standards just fell.

I don't have a device on me at home. The iPad is charging in a different room. I suppose I could put batteries in the little old digital camer, and find the adapter that puts the card in the computer slot... If I'm right that the slot on this computer is for SD cards...

All that stuff about the toaster sounds fascinating. Drop in and autoeject definitely describes the toaster. I'd kind of thought it was a Sunbeam, but that seems to seal it. It was definitely the ne plus ultra. I don't know why they don't make a "luxury" version of the same thing and charge a bucket load. Oh. Yes, I do. Bagels. They sell those huge puff balls and call them bagels and people want to toast them.

Delicious news! A real water bagel--boiled and baked-- from a real bagel maker, of normal size, with a proper crust, defrosted late yesterday and overnighted in a plastic bag with the sourdough and an English muffin, therefore a little softer than ones that have had no adventures. I accidentally figured out how to toast it right the first time! I knew from the Amazon pictures that one side was likely to toast more than the other. I knew from my experience with the bagel setting on the CO that I don't like the outer sides (crusts) of my toasted bagels to be "raw" so bagel setting might not be for me.

Put half a bagel in, with the color setting where it was for yesterday's bread. It popped up just beginning to be brown and mostly on one third. So I turned it before putting it back in, turning up the color. I think it must have some kind of timer. When I looked in and saw a dark edge, I kicked it out. First I tried to lift the lever but it was locked. Then I remembered the "cancel" button, which was lit up, which I think means there's bread inside. Pressing cancel popped it up. It was a little too brown, but perfectly and evenly toasted across the whole surface. I was indulging in butter, and it wasn't charred, just dark toast, and was delicious. So I tried the other half in the other slot. This time, I did the first toast the same, then on the second toasting didn't change the darkness and let it pop on its own. Same exact too dark, perfectly toasted. Added some onion jam to the butter. Super-delicious. I will have to find the setting for just a bit less toasted, but mostly for looks.

MAJOR HAPPY DANCE!!

This is the toast I wanted from the CO.

Yaay! You have bonded with the cute toaster!

ROTFL!!!

So if inspiration doesn't come in dreams, it often catches up in the shower. I thought of toast that might need a recipe. Not ”fancy avocado toast”. I refuse to believe it takes a recipe to slice a radish and not overdo the pepitas. It may be the literal truth that the recipe app tells you how to put peanutbutter on toast, or make a sandwich, but that's now less risible than a recipe for making the actual toast,

In the shower, today, I bethought me of croutons. To me it's pretty obvious, but I can see that it could mystify some. And you can use a pop-up toaster to dry the bread if you don't have time to let nature do it. Okay, along those lines, I'll also concede that some people are seasoning challenged and might need a recipe for bread crumbs. But can you toast then crumble? I always crumble, season, drop of oil, toast in oven.

I never think of toast and croutons being the same thing. Toast is, well, toast. Coated with butter. A crouton is fried in oil. I eat croutons in soup and salad but I wouldn't put toast in soup..... but I would put toast in salad...... with some foie gras on it or a sliver or smoked salmon.... or some grilled cheese.....Confusing!

But croutons can be toasted in the oven, or fried in butter, and to me the big difference isn't in method, but that croutons are the same crunchy all the way through, whereas toast is crunchy on the outside and tender in the middle—unless made in the CO, where it's crunchy the whole way through if it's at all brown on top. And some soups are served with toast points, while I can't imagine toast ”in” salad if it's bigger than a crouton, and I'm thinking ”salad” has some different meanings over there. Additionally, toast need not be buttered, though surely that's the most common. A crouton, even if it's not toast, to your wat of thinking, is still in the toast family of things to do with bread, and the thought of a recipe for it isn't totally laughable.

I'm reminded of a jest, an ”article” in the Saturday Evening Post a century or so ago. It was meant to be absurd. A recipe for the most non-recipe-needing dish possible—salad—with ridiculous instructions, including the assertion that it must be in a wooden bowl rubbed with a clove of garlic and never, ever washed. An awful lot of people don't get this kind of joke, and I met pratitioners of this absurdity—and rancidity— as late as the 1990’s. Another gem was that pepper must be freshly ground on the salad at the table, which led to droves of headwaiters roving restaurants with giant peppermills, which persisted to a similar time. I think they only started dying out because they started appearing on lists of hoaxes and pranks in popular publications. ... And, to me, the thought of toast recipes is similarly risible.

Huh, I thought the point of adding the pepper at the table was so it could be added to taste ... I don't want any pepper added to my dishes, but many people love it. Most nicer restaurants do not have salt and pepper on the tables. Likewise with the guy offering to grate cheese. I feel like I have heard to silly garlic bit before but didn't know the source. Interesting bit of history!

I thought the freshly ground pepper and freshly grated cheese was just a visible service and server interaction leading to more tipping.

I recall doing the garlic thing back in the day - but we always washed our wooden salad bowls 😀

And can't well-done toast be crunchy all the way through, depending on the bread and its thickness?

Funny story: not that long ago, I cubed and dehydrated a bunch of leftover bread heels of homemade honey wheat bread, and stored it in several clear containers on top of the fridge, planning on making them into breadcrumbs. A week or 2 later, I noticed that 2 of the containers were missing, so I asked Hubby about it and he said he thought they were croutons, and had been putting them on salads 😄

The cheese thing came in much later. I don't know if the price of parmesan went up or restaurant margins went down, or people got less shy about heaping it on, but the server sprinkling cheese for you replaced the pot of parm on the table to control portions and keep customers from heaping it shamelessly.

The pepper thing did indeed start with tongue in cheek, the must have pepper freshly ground at the table silliness, but as it, and the rancid bowl disguised with garlic, became normalized, I'm sure people came up with all kinds of new explanations for them. For actual custom service, they could have the waiter complete the salad on the tray, the way other dishes are/were done in better restaurants, rather than making a sneezy cloud in your face with a giant peppermill. Long before I knew the farcical origins of this, I really resented the whole pepper rigamarole. It was awkward and intrusive.

A properly made and dressed salad shouldn't need seasoning at the table, and this is true of dressing on the side, too. And pepper scarfers can easily ask for a shaker or small mill at even the finest restaurants, excluding those where the chef expects you to have the same palate as the chef, and any personal alteration is resented and prevented (no matter if you have a disorder where you can barely taste and pepper makes food palatable). OTOH, I read about an ethnic restaurant where standard American condiments just weren't used on their kind of food. A patron whose companions were into the food, and tolerantly came along and found something plain he could like, asked for ketchup. The server ran down the block to a burger joint or something similar, and borrowed a bottle of ketchup. Great service, that.

Carol, I'm sure it can. I ate some last week, ;) I should have said ”stereotypically”.

Inspiration proves out! The new Cutie toaster has a "defrost" setting to warm the bread before toasting. The inspiration was for bagels and stacking style English muffins. I haven't tried the specific button for them on the toaster because I didn't like bagel setting at all in the CO. I want the bottom to be toasted some too. But while the tops were toasting well on double drop and light-medium setting, the insides weren't really toasted at all, and kind of gummy. So... what would happen if oen "defrosted" it first (i.e., warmed and dried), then toasted. I did it with an English muffin half today, and it was kind of perfect. One could nitpick this or that, but it was just the right amount of proto-crunch on the bottom, perfectly toasted minus the shadows fo the inner structure of the toaster on top, a little soft inside but not gummy, and best of all, lovely toasty flavor.

I never achieved anything like this in the CO. I'm wondering about toasting longer at a lower temperature, and may try that. Just because the Cutie and I are becoming lasting friends doesn't mean I should abandon its counter-mate totally. :)

Oh no. What if you find that the TO is in fact capable of making superlative toast? Will Cutie be heartlessly ushered from its forever home?

Certainly not! It would just mean that I could do long toast in the CO. :) I was truly willing to do the all in one thing, but the Breville is a serious appliance meant for serious work and overkill for half an English muffin. The two slot cutie has its job and does it well. And I'm sure I can find other things that the CO does better than the real ovens, but just for the batter-free shrimp, it has a purpose. :) Those were really good and seriously simple.

I'm

Simple, cheap and effective.

Simple, cute, on sale and effective

i suppose at this point, i am happy enough with a toaster oven. One less appliance to have to find a home for!

:D I was planning to be happy with a toaster oven until it made bad toast!

Cutie needs some stick-on googly eyes!

In fact, all small appliances do. Think the Disney animated ”Beauty and The Beast”? But with kitchen appliances. Maybe I indulged too much in my youth.

Toaster ovens aren't really a thing here at all, so a toaster isn't an additional appliance to make space for. We usually have small ovens and grills (broilers) integral to our stoves so don't have separate ones in a toaster oven. My microwave also has oven and grill modes. So, again, no need for a separate appliance.

Floral, say more about your microwave’s oven and grill modes? It has heating elements and radiant heat? I’ve never seen that in the US.

Yes. You can use it in all three modes.

John, look under ”speed oven”.

I bought a small toaster oven made by Oster.

Thie is the most lousy toaster, ever!

There are two elements in both the upper and the lower of the interiour of the toaster. There are two problems with that. First is that there are only two elements running across it, so there is a wide space betweent those elements that is not covered. So your bread will get toasted at each end, eventually, but the middle part....not so much.

The second thing that is wrong with is the fact that neither the top nor the bottom element is close enough to the rack that holds the bread to effecively toast that bread. By the time a slice of bread gets toasted, it is all dried out and it can take about 15 minutes or so! It is the most lousy toaster I have ever had!

What I did find is that it makes a fair small oven and my smaller iron skillets fit into it and I can bake a few biscuits or a pan of cornbread in it. Also, it does a fair job of crisping up baguettes.

But making real toast is something it does not do very well at all. I have had to use the broil feature where it uses only the top element and do one side at a time. But each side takes so long!!!

We do cheese toast a lot and to make cheese toast requires a good strong element both top and bottom, and this toaster is supremely lousy for that!

And if it is a heavier and moist whole grain bread, it can take long enough to make you not even want to try.

Lousy toaster!!!!!I have no use for a pop up one because we rarely use the kind of bread slices that fit in one of those.

I have to say though, that because I have been using it to bake the biscuits and cornbread and also a few other things like that, it has become evident to me the value of having a small baking space to use that does not heat up a space the size of small bathroom just to bake a few biscuits is of great value . I could see the value of having a small oven like this but as a real oven, not just a countertop appliance.

I did recently get a new range with a double oven, small on top and large on bottom to replace my old double oven model. Unlike my old double oven, this new one has an upper smaller oven that is still bigger than the same upper oven on my old range. I used my old smaller oven for the broil feature to make toast and it worked wonderfully! It was small enough to make that a valuable toaster . The new small oven is still too big to want to use it that way, as a toaster. So, I continue with the small counterotp one for bread.

As a toaster it is just plain old lousy and badly designed, in my opinion.

So look for one to have at least three elements at both top and at bottom and look for one where your bread is close enough to those elements to actually toast the bread. My daughter has an older toaster oven from Black Decker and it does an amazing job of toasting and it has been in service for a long time. Like so many other things, the older model is often better built and longer lasting. I hate this toaster, as a toaster, and I would wish for a better quality one for use as an oven.

The new ranges have huge ovens! Who needs to heat up so much extra space to do a small job?! It is as if they are made to bake as if everyday were thanksgiving and we are a cooking big meals in it. Reality is that many will only put in something like a small pizza . What a waste!!!! I would welcome an entirely new way of thinking about our cooking spaces and practices and of building our kitchens. Time for a change .

floral, your post put me in mind of a range that we had when we lived in England for a couple of years back in the 70s. It had the pull down grill at the top and I loved that! I dont know why we dont have such things here in the US. I have never seen one like it here and I would buy that if I could find it. It was wonderful!!!

Also, talking again about oven size....many of the old ovens from way back when were actually quite small by todays over the top standards . I am speaking of the old vintage ones such as the old Maytag ones. Some even had recessed cooking pots on the top burners.

So many things got supersized over the decades, as did so much of our population. Many of us are super sized as well.

I would value some of the features from by gone days much more than a modern air fry feature. I saw lots of ovens with that feature when I was shopping for a new range and I would be suspicious of that as a lasting and reliable feature. The ovens are just too darned big to be practical!!! We need more efficiency of use of resources. An air fryer is best as a seperate stand alone appliance, I think . They are small and a bit like a small oven in that regard and probably a lot more efficient to use than a large air fry oven. I suspect that most people are just air frying small amounts of things anyway. I would rather have a pull down grill, instead.

Curses, for this new toaster obession!

I found https://www.timstoasters.com/models-years/ which delves into the variants of the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster. I devoured this arcana as a starving man devours, well, toast with truffle butter.

Hmm. Cadmium plated internals are cool, you can’t really get that done anymore. Ooo, the “Lincoln Continental” of the series? The later models were more powerful, over 1300 w. Supposedly easily repaired and modified to accept a modern grounded plug.

Today DD said we need a new toaster, ASAP, so I need to Spring Into Action.

I am not at home at the moment so I can't photograph my appliances but I believe the microwave is this one. https://www.panasonic.com/au/consumer/household/microwave-ovens/convection-grill-microwaves/nn-ct56mbqpq.html

It cost nothing like that price though

I bought is mainly because it was black and fitted the niche in the kitchen which when the house was built 200 years ago contained an oven.

We have 3-in-one and 5-in-one combi micro ovens here. Not unusual.

Hmm, I am seriously behind the times with cooking technology. I am still impressed when the burner lights without a match.

Wow! That toaster site is aweome. You don't have room for a plethora of toastologies. Do get the ladies to agree on what kind of toast they want to eat before you commit. ;)

The defrost trick worked really well on room temp sourdough today.

At the restaurant supply store. A Waring commercial toaster, for about a third of new price. I was tempted but restrained myself.

John, I’m the proud owner of the Sunbeam “Lincoln Continental “! As I recall, I purchased it for $1 at a yard sale in South Laguna about 50 years ago. It still makes excellent toast! I also have a Balmuda steam toaster oven for which I paid…more than that.

Oooo say more! and congratulations on your 9,900% return on investment. They don’t cost $1 any more :-)