Breville Mini Smart Oven, Brushed Stainless Steel

My last toaster oven was a gift and I could not use it for it was too tall and heated the underside of my kitchen cabinets. This oven is the perfect size for 1-2 person household. Easy to use, temperatures are true, toasts bagels an toast to perfection. The only design flaw is the rack doesn’t automatically pull out when you open the door, but this is a minor inconvenience.

I have been using this toaster oven for over two years, so I think I am now in a position to write a review on it. The following is my comments:

Price: I did considerable research before I made the purchase. At the time of my purchase, Amazon offered the best price which was at least CAD$20 cheaper than any online stores or retailers in Vancouver.

Design: It has a sleek and clean design in matt stainless steel which, I think, will go with any classic or contemporary kitchen design. The interior matt stainless steel and the sliding crumb tray make cleaning easy and convenient. The control panel has a user-friendly design, and the function dial, LCD screen and buttons for various settings are all large and easy to read and use. The LCD screen indicates if the oven is preheating, and when it reaches the pre-set temperature, the cooking time will start counting down automatically throughout the cooking cycle. It is almost a fool-proof design!

Functions: We use the Toast function almost every day. It can toast up to 4 slices of bread at a time and the browning settings range from 1 to 7 (the darkest). However, I have never made a toast with browning setting higher than 3 and it usually takes no more than 2 minutes to brown a toast to my desired crispiness. The Bagel function is good for toasting bagel, or reheating a pizza or open sandwich as it gives out higher temperature to the top without burning the bottom of the toast.

Before the Bake, Roast, Reheat and Pizza functions operate, it first starts at the pre-heating mode. This mini oven takes quite a short time to preheat and can reach a temperature of 425F within just 3 minutes. This saves a lot of energy compared to my conventional oven.

The Broil function does not require preheating and therefore makes it a great helper in my cooking. This is particular helpful when you do stir-frying and want to sear certain ingredients, such as fish or meat slices, before mixing them with other ingredients which require just quick stir-frying. I never use my conventional oven for searing because it will cost so much time and energy for preheating.

My limited experience with the Pizza function is not particularly good because it tends to make the pizza crust too dry and hard. Perhaps I just need more practice. This oven is large enough for a 10 inch pizza.

Special notes:

The ‘A Bit More’ button is a super design and we use it all the time! If the food is not yet cooked to our desired liking at the end of the cooking cycle, we press this button to add just a bit more time to continue the cooking cycle. For example, by pressing the button once, it adds 30 seconds to Toast, 2 minutes to Broil, and 5 minutes to Bake, etc. I can use this button anytime during the cooking cycle or immediately after.

This oven has three rack positions where you can place the wire rack. In the manual, it suggests the top position for Broil. I must say that I have never used the top position for any function because this will leave your food very close to the top heating element and you will get it burnt easily for whatever function you use. Similarly, when I use the bottom rack position for Bake or Roast, I sometimes find the bottom of the food a bit too dark. I cannot use the middle rack position for Bake or Roast because the overall interior height is just about 4.5 inches and there is not enough ‘height’ to move around some food, such as a medium-sized potato or yam. If I were to redesign it, I would just spread the interior height of the oven evenly into two rack positions so that in either rack position, the food will not be too close to the heating element.

This mini oven has quite a loud and sharp beeper and it sounds once every time you press any button and three times at the end of the preheating or cooking cycle. I find it a bit annoying, but over time have got used to it. I mentioned it because it might be a nuisance to other members of your household if your kitchen is near a study room or bedroom.

Finally, I need to mention that the top of the oven can get very hot during its operation and it sometimes warm up my upper kitchen cabinet a bit. Therefore you need to make sure that there is sufficient clearance between the top of the oven and your upper cabinets. Also, when I Bake or Roast, I would pull the oven a bit away from the backsplash so that the oven is not directly under the upper cabinets. I can also ‘re-direct’ the heat by placing a plate or a cooked dish on the top of the oven and use it as a warming tray.

Conclusion: My husband and I both agreed that this was one of the best small appliances we had purchased. What we thought would be used primarily for making toasts or reheating leftovers has turned out to be a great helper in my everyday cooking. I gave it 5 stars even though there is room for improvement. If there was the choice, I would have given it four and a half stars. This Breville Mini Smart Oven is the smallest one in its series and it also comes in two other sizes. I highly recommend this mini oven to small households and would advise bigger households to consider the larger ones. By coincidence, my sister-in-law has been using the largest one for more than two years for her growing family.

**Update**
Will be 2 years owning this in just a few months and we still use it multiple times a day and have had no issues at all with it! Set up remains the same, too, with the board and mats! We actually keep our bread box on top now 🙂

We have had this for about 9 months now and have been very happy with it! We’ve had no issues, clean up is a breeze and it’s simple enough that my two daughters (8 and 11) can both use it with no issues. The pan that came with it is fine but I bought a set of pans separately that I like much better that included a sheet tray, rack, muffin pan, pizza stone, and roasting pan. We have toasted, baked, reheated, broiled and roasted all with great success. I love not having to run the “big oven” for small things and what a help at Thanksgiving!

I personally do not find the beep overly annoying or too loud as other reviewers have stated and I am actually sensitive to loud or high pitched noises (I have retracted eardrums making some sounds painful). In my opinion it’s better to be loud than too quiet for this application anyway. Maybe it’s because I have two young girls or a barky chihuahua…but it’s better to hear it than not…and really, it’s not like it beeps for a long time…a second or two and it’s over…not worth complaining about it in my opinion.

I also don’t have an issue with the handle sticking out too far. It certainly doesn’t stick out past the edge of the counter or get snagged on anything and I’d rather there be room enough that my children (or me) don’t accidentally hit the door with our fingers and get burned. There is room enough that that is not a concern.

The rack not coming out automatically when you open the door is actually a feature I prefer. I am not incapable or lazy enough that I can’t slide the rack out on my own when necessary and it only takes a second to accomplish. I find it annoying when you just want to pop the oven open to check what you are cooking that the whole thing slides out…and in my experience in the past it would sometimes catch and the door wouldn’t close nicely when you wanted to close it back up…esp with a pan of food on it. You’d have to wiggle and jiggle it to get the process started….granted that was a long time ago, maybe they make em differently now, but either way I prefer my rack to stay in place until I pull it out. I actually bought a little red silicone tool made to push and pull the hot oven rack in and out with and I store it in a small metal magnetic basket that is stuck to the side of the oven. Handy and ready whenever I need it.

The only thing I would want to make this better would be that Breville made one of their bamboo boards that fit the top of this oven. Since they don’t I found my own solution. I bought a board that fits PERFECTLY on top of this little oven…the Architec Gripperwood Gourmet Sheesham Cutting Board, 10 by 15-Inch (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007ZGN8Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and a set of 2 Silicone Baking Sheet Mat Liners 8½” X 11″ (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F2LRL3Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1) that I placed underneath the board for heat protection. Works WONDERFULLY….adds counter space, looks great, and it prevents the problems involved with my children turning the oven on when they’ve left something on the top of the oven…like the book my oldest was reading while making herself some toast a while back!

Overall, I am happy we chose this unit. We are a family of four and it’s a great size for us! I do wish the price were lower but I wish that about lots of things, LOL.

Over the last 50 years, I have owned multiple toaster ovens. There just simply handy for small baking/broiling without heating your large oven. Especially great for kids toasting small baked goods. Having purchased many of these in the past, I’ve noted that they really don’t last that long and have poor heating elements and are hard to clean. I began an extensive Google search to identify the best small counter top oven and this item consistently appeared as the number one recommendation. I realize its more expensive than most of the others but I liked the fact that it had four heating elements and a ceramic lining for easy cleaning.

My research paid off and this is the best, easiest to use oven I’ve ever owned. The heating, timer and ease of use is just perfect. Now I have never used this type of oven for simple toast as I believe a regular toaster is best for that, but I do toast sandwiches in it and its great. I’m glad I spent a little more as this appears to be of such good quality that it will likely outlast two or three of the cheapy ovens.

This is a review after 6 months of use. The oven is nicely small, great if you have limited counter space. It provides several speciality functions, like a pizza and bagel settings, which are very useful. The pizza setting is perfect for my homemade za, but it also has a setting for frozen pizza if that’s your thing. But why you’d want to have frozen when you could make your own is beyond me. Some of my favourite features are that it remembers previous settings, how dark you like your toast for example. It’s also preheats really fast, and beeps to let you know when the preheat is complete. It could beep a little louder IMO but that’s a minor quibble. The LCD display is bright and clear, and conveys necessary information well. The controls are simple and effective, and feel sturdy. It’s well thought-out, well designed, and quite attractively styled. If I get 10 years out of it I’ll be quite happy.