Hamilton Beach Toaster Oven

I put this oven through its paces for several months now before writing a review. This oven makes excellent toast, frozen cheese Texas toast pieces perfect in less than 5 minutes. Frozen pizzas about 12 inch size come out great. I've made thick crust pizza using canned refrigerator pizza dough, the dough will need 5 minutes or so of pre-baking in the pizza oven before adding toppings and baking for another half hour.Other reviewers complained about items not getting done, but look at the portion sizes. This is a small oven, best for a single person or two older people like we are. You can't put two pounds of frozen chicken pieces in and expect them to get done quickly, for more than 2 servings you'll need to fire up your regular oven. This is the real consideration in buying a small oven like this. It's meant for snacks, appetizers, and two-portions of meat, potatoes, fish pieces etc. If you have more than 2 people to feed, then a regular full sized oven is necessary.The "bake" and "convection" settings are a bit misleading if you're expecting a full-size oven experience. While you can fit a whole chicken in this thing, the pan will be close to the burner on the bottom. The low rack position that attaches to the door is good to sear anything on the small baking pan, but not for long cooking, the pan will brown/burn, so you must do your pan sear and then move your food to the top rack to finish. The best reason to use the convection setting is to get that perfect crust on things like roasted potatoes. For this I cut up 2 large baking potatoes into tri-cornered cubes, toss in olive oil with salt/pepper, and put skin side down on the baking pan. I start on convection 350 with the pan on the bottom rack, and move up to the top rack after 10 minutes. Cook another 20-30 and you have fab roasted potatoes with a brown crust that is so great from convection cooking. If you need a convection oven as a serious cook for more than a side dish or more than 2 servings, get a full sized oven.The oven is hot and not kid friendly to touch. However, the top of the outside is pressed a little deeper so you can take advantage of the hot exterior and place buns on top to warm, and your pan placed on top when done will stay warm for a bit. Again, great for two people or appetizers. The interior has cleaned up very well for me with a paper towel in a light detergent/water solution.

I can't even wait for Amazon to prompt me via email to say how wonderful this oven is!I must have gotten a different oven than some of the other commenters I read beforehand. I've had it about 2 weeks and not only has there not been a single problem, it works great and pretty darn fast too.I bought it because the heating element in my big regular oven gave out, and I had a hard time finding a replacement element. This option worked out better and ended up being cheaper anyway!This also replaced my microwave oven. I just didn't have counter space for both. And that's my ONLY problem ... getting used to not having a microwave. (Cutting the cable TV 3 years ago was easier!) But I'm old enough to remember how to REALLY cook, and as I said, it's darn fast. Hopefully I'll be eating healthier too.Yes, it does get kind of hot on the outside, but well, it's NOT a microwave, people. Maybe some of the previous purchasers weren't expecting that.It's spacious inside, easy to operate....I could go on, but I won't.Final word...this one's a winner!

I bought this based on all the great reviews. Never could find it in a local store. I needed to replace a worn-out 8 yr old Black and Decker toaster oven that I loved. I needed an oven that could hold a pizza and more than 4 slices of bread. This is smaller than my old oven, but not by much. The 12" pizza pans sold here on Amazon fit in it great. I can cook a frozen Digiorno pizza in it with those pans. Yet the exterior size doesn't seem large. It looks great in the stainless, and so far seems to be working well.I received a defective unit initially. The first oven I received sounded like a lawn mower when I first turned the convection fan on. Seriously-I had to yell to be heard over it. But Amazon was AWESOME about a speedy replacement-got a replacement within 3 days of notifying them- and the new one is so much quieter. Hoping I just got a lemon and this one holds up.Specifics : I've cooked biscuits with the convection fan on, and while the cooking time was not any shorter, they did not burn on the top like they did in the old oven (I always had to place foil over them halfway through to prevent this). So I guess the fan does make for more even cooking, even if it's not 25% faster like the manual says. I've cooked frozen boneless breaded chicken breasts on normal bake and they cooked crispy and thoroughly in 25 min on 425 degrees just like the old oven, so the thermostat seems accurate enough. My rack slides in and out attached to the door without any problem. So far I have kept the rack on the bottom slot. The timer does tick loudly, but I actually like this so I can tell when it has stopped cooking since the one-ding bell at the end can be easy to miss if you're not in the same room when it goes off. As someone else mentioned, wrap your rolls in foil and the outer top of the oven makes a great bread warmer while your food cooks or a place to keep your cooked food warm afterwards. Only thing I just flat out don't like are the knob designs. My timer knob is a little stiff to turn backwards, as others have noted.But that's minor and easy enough to adjust to.This looks really nice, the interior is as large as more costly units, and does a satisfactory job for about $50. Thanks, Amazon, for making it so easy to buy online.