I have always preferred a toaster oven to a conventional toaster – especially back in the day when gooey cheese sandwiches were common lunchtime fare. However, I never entertained the idea of spending $250 on a toaster oven until our standard toaster oven bit the dust. While searching for a replacement I saw the Breville BOV800XL Smart Oven was a #1 best seller in convection ovens on Amazon.com. At first I thought folks were nuts to pay so much for a toaster oven but then I began to read the reviews.

Why We Chose the Breville Toaster Oven

One fellow’s review shared how he seldom uses his conventional oven since he purchased the Breville toaster oven. He cooks the same foods, yet the toaster oven uses less electricity, heats up faster and doesn’t warm the kitchen as much his conventional oven. That got my attention. Lacking air conditioning, I hate to use our oven during the summer months.

Overall, the following details convinced me to part with my cash:

• High number of positive reviews on Amazon.com
• Size – can fit a 9x13 pan (if it doesn’t have handles)
• Variety of cooking options: bake, broil, roast, cookies, reheat, pizza, bagel, toast, warm – along with convection and frozen settings
• Element IQ cooking technology – wattage of quartz heating elements adjusts based on cooking method selected
• Energy efficiency and convenience compared to a conventional oven
• Non-stick interior and easily removable crumb tray
• Quality of construction – including bundled pizza pan and broil rack

How We Use Our Breville Toaster Oven

We’ve had our Breville toaster oven for about a year and couldn’t be more satisfied. In addition to toast and open-faced sandwiches, I use it to:

• Bake potatoes
• Roast vegetables
• Bake veggie burgers
• Broil Portobello mushrooms
• Bake cookies and snack cakes

As someone who works from home, I love how I can put sweet potatoes in the oven in the morning, let the auto-shut off feature do its job and have warm baked sweet potatoes ready for my lunch break. My husband commented just the other day about how much the toaster oven has contributed to our new way of eating. He’s become a real pizza-making aficionado (using lots of veggies!) and I honestly can’t remember the last time we turned on our big oven…

In the end, I feel the energy savings, convenience and cooking quality provided by the Breville toaster oven more than offsets the initial cost.

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