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Toaster buyers guide

Toast, the cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast, is just about as cheap and as versatile a foodstuff as it’s possible to find. Whether you’re a Marmite lover or a strawberry jam fan, toast is nearly always the ideal accompaniment.

But whilst toasters may seem like the simplest piece of equipment in the kitchen, it’s only when you attempt to buy a new one that you discover the toaster market is a minefield of options and features.

There will be sections you can skip over below, but there may also be a few snippets that will help decide what toaster you want.

So whether you’re just looking for something cheap and cheerful, or the latest art-deco four-slice masterpiece, we aim to provide you with all the information to find the best toaster deals for you.

The price of style?

If you have a look through the comparison table above one of the first things you’ll notice is the huge range in toaster prices. Rising from up to an incredible £200-plus, there are huge differences. So what are you paying for?

One thing, of course, is styling – which very often falls in alongside the brand. Just like you’d expect to pay more at Marks & Spencer or for an Apple product, the same applies to a Dualit or Magimix toaster. These brands may not necassarily last longer, work faster or toast better, but you’re paying for the look and reputation as much as anything else.

At the other end of the scale, you can pick up a perfectly functional cheap toaster for just for around £10. And it’s not brands you’ve never heard of; the likes of Breville, Philips and Bosch all make relatively cheap toasters a tenth of the price of those top end fashion accessories.

No matter which you buy, remember there’s insurance and guarantees you can put in place to protect your investment, however large or small it may be. However, you may find you want to spend a little more to ensure you get all the features you need that we’ve outlined below.

Toaster wattage

This should only really concern you if you’re looking to conserve energy, as the higher the wattage the more energy you will consume – which in turn will up your electrcity bill. You may scoff, but eco toasters are now hitting the market that save a staggering third of the energy used by a standard toaster; certainly food for thought. So, in simple terms, the lower your toaster’s wattage the less energy it will use up.

Number of slices

The number of slices is the easiest to understand of all the toaster features, but configuration, space and running costs are easy to overlook. For domestic kitchen toasters this number is between one and six, while catering items will cater for more.

  • One-slice: Thees toasters (sometimes referred to as a single slice toaster) may seem too limited for some, although in many situations they’re just what you need. Designed primarily for use in places such as guest houses and nursing homes, the single slice toaster does exactly what you expect it to do while saving space, money and electricity.
  • Two-slice: A feature in most family homes, the two slice toaster is the most popular available and as such it’s where the greatest variety is to be found in terms of design and features. They usually contain two toasting chambers arranged side-by-side, although there is often the option to use only one chamber at a time. It is also possible to get a slim-line, long-slot toaster that can toast two slices end-on-end, although these are rarer and usually come with a designer price tag.
  • Four-slice: The four-slice toaster is beaten in the popularity stakes only by its two-sliced sibling. They generally come with either four bread-sized chambers lined up parallel to each other or with two long, thin slots, designed to take two slices each.  Sometimes four-slice toasters come with two independent sets of controls, meaning it’s possible to toast your bread in pairs, set to different settings. Four-slice toasters are generally used by larger families, or in small catering situations, such as bed and breakfasts.

If you need to be able to toast more than four pieces of bread at a time, you will need to look at getting yourself a 6 slice toaster.  If you require more than 6 slices, you will need to look into getting yourself a special catering toaster, which generally come at quite a high premium.

Crumb trays

The crumb tray is a sliding shelf that slots into the bottom of a toaster to catch the burnt crumbs that tumble off your toast. These generally take the form of a metal tray underneath the toaster which slides out manually.

It is possible to get spring-loaded trays in the style of a CD player, although these can be more hassle than they’re worth and end up just being one extra thing to break in a moment of cack-handedness.

Toasters without a crumb tray either don’t have a bottom (so the crumbs fall straight through,) or require the user to turn the toaster upside down to remove the crumbs. However, the majority of toasters do feature a sliding crumb tray.

Frozen bread setting

Most people would agree that sliced bread is best thing since, well, sliced bread, however it does have a tendency to go stale rather quickly. For this reason many of us choose to freeze our loaves.

The problem with freezing bread is that it’s not always ready to use when you need it, so many toasters now come with a frozen bread setting (often referred to as a defrost setting) which slowly warms your bread into a usable form, before blasting it at normal toasting temperatures.

Of course, it’s possible to defrost bread in a toaster with no frozen bread setting simply by turning the temperature right down, or there’s always the oven (or microwave, although you’ll tend to lose any crustiness). However using a toaster with the feature build in takes a bit of the guess work out of this exercise and is the best alternative, as it shouldn’t in itself add much to the price.

Variable width toasters

In the good old days bread was simple. You had two choices  –  white or brown. Nowadays the bread aisle of your local supermarket will be overflowing with every possible combination of water, flour and yeast. From bagels and baguettes, to bloomers and batons, all your doughy needs are taken care of. To deal with every eventuality, designers came up with the variable width toaster.

Variable width toasters tend to come with wider slots, designed to accommodate thicker slices, rolls etc. Inside the slot is a cage which closes around the bread to centre it between the elements. This means that whether you’re in the mood for a pikelet or a full-on crumpet, the toaster can handle it.

The downside of a variable width toaster is that they tend to be wider than their single width counterparts, so it might be worth considering just how many toasted ciabattas you’re really planning on eating if you don’t have much kitchen space. Again, the grill is a safe substitute for this feature if space or money are an issue.

Which toaster: Other common features

  • Cancel: While it’s usually simple enough to just push the handle of your toaster up if your toast is done but hasn’t popped, this can rapidly affect the life of your toaster by using the spring mechanism in a way it isn’t really meant for. The cancel button found on some toasters gets around this additional wear and tear.
  • High lift: A high left (or hi-left, we presume to give it that ‘techy’ feel) toaster lets you lift the toast higher than usual out of the toaster – particularly useful if you tend to cook bread that’s either thin/soft (and so likely to break) or small (such as rolls).
  • Pause: If you’re one of these people who doesn’t trust the timer and prefers to manually check their toast’s progress, you may have been left frustrated by the fact that each time you check it the timer restarts. Luckily, some toasters now come with a pause function which allows you to check the toast without restarting the timer.
  • Reheat: If you’ve ever cooked a full-English breakfast before, you’ll know that the hardest part to get right is the timing. The reheat mode is designed for those situations where the toast pops up before the rest of your feast has finishing cooking. By turning the element down to a lower temperature, the reheat mode ensures you can warm up your toast to serving temperature without further browning.

What to do next

Hopefully this buyer’s guide will have given you some (toasted) food for thought.

The humble toaster may seem to be a simple appliance that sits in the corner of the kitchen and makes bread turn brown, crusty and hot, but it can be so much more. Whether you’re a single student or the head of a family of five, the best toaster for you is out there.

To help you find your ideal toaster, feel free to use our price comparison engine, which allows you to refine your search to just the toasters that have the features you want.

Once you’ve found a toaster you like, from a retailer you trust, simple click through to purchase. Remember reading the toaster reviews is a good way of finding out whether or not it lives up to the claims of its manufacturer, and can match your toasting ambitions.

By Tim Pilgrim