It makes me want to hide this toaster, if I didn’t use it so often it would be hidden. Some brands will advertise the material of their toaster oven’s heating elements, and generally, ovens using quartz or ceramic will cost more than those using Calrod. But in all our research and testing, we didn’t see consistent correlations between element type and either price or performance.
You’ll find the Hamilton Beach 31344D Roll Top Toaster easy to clean after each use thanks to the included bread crumb tray and the removable glass roll top door. The unit is smaller than other models on the market, but still cooks up to four slices of toast at a time, as well as a 9-inch pizza. There are also two rack positions, so you can bake or broil your favorite foods. If you like the functionality of an old-school toaster but also want a mini oven for heating up leftovers and cooking smaller items, the 2-in-1 is perfect for that. 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.
The FlashXpress compensates for the increased temperature by automatically reducing the cook time, so the results are the same every time. These were some of the fastest toasting times hamilton beach air fryer of all the toaster ovens we tested. If you get a toaster oven with a convection setting, you can also use it for air frying (air frying is, after all, just convection baking).
Since most of the crevices and protrusions are rounded, it’s easier to clean than sharp corners. The back corners are the hardest bits to clean, but they’re also the least likely places food would spatter. The top elements are at the very front and back of the oven, so I was surprised at how evenly my open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches cooked when I set the oven to broil. I was also pleased when I used the broil setting to sauce and broil some ribs I had cooked the previous day. The broiler isn’t super-fast or powerful, though, so it’s not the perfect replacement for the broiler in a standard oven. At 15 inches high, 23.4 inches wide, and 18 inches deep, this is a fairly large oven that eats quite a bit of countertop space.
Eventually, we were able to find the sweet spot on the dial for our desired doneness, but it took multiple attempts. That said, the toast came out remarkably hamilton beach toaster oven even for a toaster oven of this caliber. Like most toaster ovens, the Hamilton Beach will get hotter after each batch of toast you make in a row.
I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the standards of my beloved Toastation, but I’m happy to report that Hamilton Beach’s newest toaster and oven combo lives up to its predecessor. While this wasn’t billed as a toaster, it is the “multi-use” recommendation in The Spruce Eats’ list of best toaster ovens, so I tested what it could do with pale bread and bagels. I cooked bagels on the broil setting and toasted the bread using convection. I got a reasonably even toast, although I had to watch the browning since I wasn’t sure how long it would take. The Hamilton Beach 6-Slice Toaster Oven with Broiler turned out to be the most useful and most often used kitchen appliance with my family.