We love the preprogrammed settings on this oven, as it takes out a lot of the experimenting you’ll normally do when cooking different types of food on a single appliance. When air frying, for instance, you can specify fries, wings, chicken nuggets, and other preset food items, which should make using the appliance just that much easier. We especially love the “dual cook” function, which, basically, lets you apply two cooking settings to one dish.
When compared to all of our other hamilton beach counter oven and baking tests, we feel the Easy Reach 4-Slice is best at toasting. As its name denotes, it can toast four slices of bread at once. However, the back-left side of the oven routinely toasted a little lighter than the rest of the oven. Perfectly sized to fit a 9-inch pizza, but not too big to be a countertop mainstay, the Hamilton Beach Toaster Oven’s five cooking settings gives you the flexibility to make just about anything. Hamilton Beach’s Easy Reach Toaster Oven has a roomy interior, making it especially well-suited for warming up multiple snacks or cooking pizzas . Its convection heating makes for evenly browned bagels or muffins.
However, in our research, we’ve found that toaster ovens have a longer life expectancy than slot toasters. If you don’t have room for both appliances in your kitchen, we’d recommend getting a toaster oven instead. Just from its name, you can tell exactly what this masterpiece is capable of.
We then tested the bake/oven function by baking five 1-ounce store bought cookie dough balls at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes. For toaster ovens with air fryer functions, we test how quickly and evenly they crisp up chicken wings and frozen French fries. We also evaluate toaster ovens based on their design quality, user manuals, control panels, ease of use, number of rack positions, interior visibility, audible alert and cleanability. If you’d like to air fry, but you just don’t have the space for an air frying toaster oven, then a pod-shaped air fryer might be best for you.
Additionally, we took note of any excessively loud beeps and evaluated the usefulness of each model’s accessories. This convection toaster oven has a slightly more powerful fan for air frying than the Cuisinart, plus convenient markings on the door and the easiest-to-clean interior. It also has additional settings for proofing bread, slow cooking, and dehydrating. Some toaster ovens can even work with air frying recipes, though that may require some adjustments. But if you’re looking to do a lot of air frying in your toaster oven, you may want to check out our separate guide to air fryer toaster ovens. Another thing that left me in awe about this unit was its 6 versatile cooking settings, including a rotisserie, pizza, broil, bake, toast, and convection.
This is an authentic manufacturer-sourced part which is specially designed for use with Hamilton Beach countertop ovens. It is an identical replacement for a missing or damaged rotisserie rod/fork that was included with a new unit. Please make sure to check the owners manual for the correct application of this component. Keep in mind this high-quality item is made of durable metal and is sold individually.
One of our testers initially tried hamilton beach toastering bread in the baking pan, which only browned the top of the bread. As with all models, you want to remove the pan and toast bread directly on the oven rack. Otherwise, they encountered no issues—the Hamilton Beach is great for any simple toasting and baking jobs.
You have to ask them directly about a hamilton beach toaster to be sure about that product. She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal. Scroll to the bottom of this article to learn more about how we test toaster ovens in our Lab — plus everything you need to consider when shopping for one. The process of cleaning this oven is pretty much the same as cleaning a regular oven, albeit a bit easier, since I had it on a countertop and could turn it as I needed. The worst mess I made was when a wily pizza eluded my grasp, bounced off the back wall, and spewed toppings onto the floor of the oven.
If you’re cooking for one or two, a larger capacity oven will be unnecessary. That said, a larger oven is a better investment if you have a large family or anticipate cooking for a crowd. Since the dials are analog, it can be hard to tell exactly what you’re setting the knob to. In addition, the print on the panel is small, which could be challenging to read for some.