My 20 year old toaster oven died last week. I was wondering if any of you could recommend a new one? I'm in Canada so North American models would be best. We mainly used the old one for making toast and grilled cheese sandwiches, and only occasionally cooked other things. So I'm looking for something small and fairly basic that won't die the day after the warranty expires.  Any suggestions?

I'm wondering if anyone out there can give me some pointers for how to get the best results when making pizza in a toaster oven. I live in China and the only oven I have access to is a small, counter top oven. My maximum temperature seems to be about 400 F (even though the dial says it will go to 250 C, which is about 475 F I think, my thermometer tells me otherwise...). Specifically, should I cook it on the top rack or the bottom rack? Should I use the back of my baking sheet (the one that came with it, I think some of you out there know what I'm talking about) or the top? Also, any other pointers you have to offer would be appreciated. Thanks! Keriann

Hi all

After two frightening hydro bills, I decided that I needed to investigate more energy efficient methods for baking small items.  Typically I would heat up my full-sized conventional oven to bake a crust for cheesecake which would take 10-15 minutes after preheating for probably 15-20 minutes.  I still intend to use my large oven for bread, but I suspect many other things could be done more economically in a counter-top oven.

My toaster oven doesn't have convection or rotisserie features, but it seems well designed.  It has a crumb tray, rack, and aluminum pan.  With all of those in place, I tried baking chicken strips and was impressed how evenly they browned, and it even seemed faster than in the large oven.  I think I hadn't tried it sooner because I feared the cleanup, but the materials seemed to shed any debris very easily.  I used to use my George Foreman Party Time grill almost every day and it was an ordeal to clean but probably saved me a lot of hydro, though at the time I had a self-cleaning oven that was well insulated.

This morning I tried baking a Dutch Baby Apple Pancake crust in the toaster oven.  I didn't put the pan in this time, and I think that was a mistake because the oven burned the butter I was trying to melt before adding the batter.  The second attempt was with the pan and the butter melted well enough, though the crust didn't come out quite as well as in the conventional oven.

Because this toaster oven is 10" wide, I think I might try baking a tart crust or cheesecake crust in it, but of course these items have a lot of butter so I'm a bit nervous about it.  I don't have a working oven thermometer right now to test the accuracy of the temperature.

If anyone else has used a counter-top oven for small items, I would love to hear about any helpful tricks.  I'm not planning to try anything that takes much more than half an hour to bake.

If anyone has found a counter-top convection oven that bakes great cakes, that would be of interest, too!

Many thanks!

Hello! I have been thinking about getting a countertop oven so I can save some electricity since I only bake a little bit every time. I have been reading some threads on here, but still have some questions.

1. Are there differences between using a convection and a regular toaster oven to bake bread?

2. I am on a tight budget... Would the convection ovens priced around $40 or less do a decent job of bread baking?

Thanks!

Eva

Hello all!

Was wondering if baking in a toaster oven is any different from a "normal" oven - the kind that's usually wall-mounted. What is your experience?

I'm not too sure what my current wall-mounted oven is - it does have a heating element on the bottom though.

The last gas and electricity bills have been niggling at me - they were higher than usual, and since I only recently started baking I'm guessing my wasteful use of the oven is causing the bill increase. As a person who doesn't bulk-bake (we eat pretty sloooowly in this household!), I'm starting to wonder if a toaster oven is the better choice for me. I usually bake 12 muffins or a single medium loaf at a time. (Did you guess I only own 1 of each type of baking equipment? haha!)

Ok... we tried our first yeast bread today.  I approximately halved the basic white bread recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook to make a single loaf instead of two, but used double the yeast, since what I had available had been sitting in the closet for at least a year, and probably longer.  We just dumped the yeast into the flour, and used room temp. milk.  The kids kneaded for about 30-45 minutes though, with different children kneading more or less well.  Periodically, I'd collect all the dough, mix it together, and redistribute, so the overall kneading balanced out.  Let rise once, punch down, let rise in a boule, and bake on a cookie sheet in the toaster oven.  I was really surprised at both how evenly the bread baked, and how moist it was.  The crust was really crisp and flakey, but inside it was super moist!  I hope the pic shows the crust and crumb ok... slicing warm bread with a steak knife is not my favorite technique!