The Jetson’s gave me a distinct nostalgia associated with Pop-Up Toasters. I’ve never actually lived in a place with a Pop-Up Toaster, but whenever I’m at a friend's house who has one, I can’t help but press the lever down, and wait expectantly for the toast to spring up, transformed from bread to toast like a caterpillar emerging, triumphant from its cocoon.
Thankfully, before I got too carried away and clicked the purchase button on a Pop-Up Toaster, a friend of mine talked me out of it. She hailed her toaster oven as a giant leap into the real future. She told me that she never uses her oven anymore, unless she’s making something bigger than a whole chicken. Everything else fits in the toaster oven, she said. And now, thanks to her suggestion, my toaster oven is my most-used kitchen appliance.
The Breville Smart Oven Pro comes with 10 presets on an extremely intuitive, easy to read screen that ranges from the typical toaster settings like bake, roast, and broil to more specific ones like bagel, pizza, and cookies. In the UK the “cookies” setting is swapped for “crumpets,” which makes me want to trade mine in for the UK version every single day. The Breville also has three different rack placements, each clearly labeled for what function they are associated with.
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While most toaster ovens use all of the heaters to bake, broil, or roast from all directions, the Breville Smart Oven has convection capabilities and can intelligently transfer heat depending on what you’re cooking and how you’ve set it. This means, when I’m toasting bread, I click a button, and the oven knows how many slices I’ve put in. It will then adjust the heating mechanisms accordingly.
Most importantly, it does all of this, and more, while maintaining a sleek, design-oriented exterior that’s petite enough to fit on any countertop.
The Breville does have a slightly more compact version, but the extra inch of space you gain on your countertop doesn’t make up for the loss of the convection capabilities, and you’ll likely be more reliant on your traditional oven. There’s one with air fryer capabilities as well, but you don’t really need that with a convection oven, in my opinion.
Instead of zapping some leftovers in the microwave, now I’ll just toss them in the toaster for a few minutes. Rather than waiting for eternity for my oven to heat up, I’ll just cook vegetables, chicken, or even pizza in the toaster. That’s right, I’ve tried it out with pizza, and this might be it’s biggest plus for me. It gets hot enough to provide that wonderful leoparding on the bottom of the pie, along with that ever-elusive crust bubble.
The intelligence and intuitiveness of the Breville makes me feel like I’m in the Jetsons, so I get the nostalgia for the past, and the efficiency of the future mixed into one always perfectly-toasted experience.
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