Just keep in mind that the pods tend to cook a little less evenly, and in most cases you’ll only be able to make a couple servings at a time. The nonstick coating in the baskets of pod-shaped air fryers are also likely to wear off within a few years, so you’ll need to replace either the basket or your entire machine. If you want to use this oven as an air fryer (because pod-shaped air fryers are simply tiny convection ovens), we’ve found that the high setting works better, since it cooks food a little faster. The exorbitantly priced Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven produced the most evenly browned toast of any model we tested.
For my next attempt (I like chicken), I used heatproof, waterproof barbecue gloves for more secure chicken extraction. The Cuisinart TOB-135 toasted bread unevenly, and its temperature control was less consistent, so we dismissed it. When we selected models to test, we didn’t consider convection to be a must-have feature. None of the parts are coated with a nonstick finish and hand washing is recommended. The aluminum baking pan became quite stained and we weren’t able to get it completely clean. Although it can toast 6 slices at once, in our tests, it didn’t brown the slices in the front as evenly as the ones in the back.
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. 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).
Although it’s not hard to read the display dead-on, it can be tricky to discern from some angles. We found that the displays on the pricier Cuisinart and Breville toaster hamilton beach toaster ovens were easier to read. Keep in mind that a large toaster oven can be pretty heavy and is more cumbersome to move; this means it’s more likely to live on your counter.
But fewer heating elements aren’t necessarily an indication of poor toasting performance. If the oven cavity is small, two elements are enough to regulate heat. That said, avoid larger toaster ovens with only a couple of elements because they won’t be able to distribute hamilton beach mixer heat evenly. The more heating elements a toaster oven has, the bigger and more expensive it will be. Without a doubt, the Cuisinart distributed heat evenly across its voluminous cavity, toasting nine slices of bread in a single batch to near golden-brown perfection.
If you have your eye on a recipe written specifically for a pod-shaped air fryer (as most are) but want to prepare it in a convection toaster oven, you can get good results with some minor adjustments. We also like that the FlashXpress beeps when the cycle has finished and turns itself off automatically (as does our other pick, the Cuisinart). This model also has an oven light, which is rare for toaster ovens at this price level.