Surface browning begins at a much lower temperature than the 320 °F indicated above. And at 428 °F, toast would be burning, not beginning to brown (on a medium setting, the toaster didn’t even reach 428 °F). We noticed that crumbs tended to accumulate on the inner ledge at the base of the oven’s door. However, hamilton beach counter oven we found it easy to brush them onto the crumb tray using a pastry brush or a paper towel. The FlashXpress’s one annoying quirk is that you can’t add time or change the temperature midway through a preset cooking cycle . This means you have to turn the Panasonic off and back on again to adjust it.
It did manage to leave the backsides of bagels slightly less toasted than the front side, however, which salvaged its score a bit. The Hamilton Beach did quite well in our frozen food testing, scoring a 7 out of 10. This put it towards the top of a metric where scores fell from 5 to 8. It did a great job of making the outsides of tater tots and the crusts of pizza nice and crispy. However, it sometimes left the insides of these foods just a tad underdone. This was no big deal for our testers that liked their pizza a little doughy, but disappointing for those that liked their pizza on the well-done end of the spectrum.
And although the June is larger than most toaster ovens, its capacity is still limited compared with that of a full-size oven, especially if you plan to prepare food for four or more people. The exorbitantly priced Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven produced the most evenly browned toast of any model we tested. That said, it took about 7 minutes to get those unparalleled results. To be fair, it’s a countertop oven, not a toaster oven, so a slower cooking time is to be expected. It took up a lot of counter space and beeped loudly as well. We think it’s best for people who don’t have space for a full-size oven in their home, or for those who have a lot of counter space and need an additional oven.
A standard quarter-sheet tray (and if you put a quarter-sheet tray on each of its two racks, that’s equal to a standard half sheet pan you’d use in a full-size oven). It can also fit a 12-cup muffin tin (ours measured 14 by 10.75 inches) hamilton beach toaster oven or a 9-by-13-inch baking pan . The Cuisinart has four slots for the racks, with metal hooks that pull out the middle rack when the door is opened. It was one of the fastest models to preheat to 350 °F, taking just over three minutes.
I have teenagers, so the oven gets used a lot for cooking frozen pizza and entrees as well as breakfast fare like cinnamon bread and frozen waffles. The oven operates on a timer that you have to set past 10 minutes for it to start and it automatically shuts off after 60 minutes. This seemed odd to me at first, but with kids in the house, I’m glad to have the auto-shutoff safety feature. The oven also has a broiler which is nice if you’re looking to make crostinis or melt some cheese on a loaf of garlic bread.
Learn how we create the most in-depth and scientific tech reviews on our About page. At a list price of $90 the Hamilton Beach Countertop Oven is fairly inexpensive and provides decent performance. However, if you’re looking for a low priced option we think you get just a bit more value from the Best Buy Award winning Black and Decker Countertop Convection Oven. The Hamilton Beach put a nice crisp on the crusts of frozen pizzas, but sometimes left the center just a tad under done. The De’Longhi Livenza Digital Convection Oven did not toast evenly in our tests.
The Hamilton Beach’s inability to alert you when it reaches the set temperature may be largely due to its general temperatures inaccuracy. It was the worst performer on our temperature accuracy testing, earning the low score of 2 out of 10 in a metric that saw score as high as 9. At temperatures of 400Ëš or less it was consistently 50Ëš warmer hotter than the set temperature, and at one point was a full 65Ëš hotter. When we set the oven to 450Ëš this discrepancy dropped to around 20Ëš.