The crumb tray caught most of the mess, and the walls wiped clean with no fuss, thanks to the nonstick coating inside the oven. Two cooking racks and a removable crumb tray that’s accessible from the front when the door is open complete the assembly. Since this is a large oven, you’ll be able to use much of your own cooking and baking gear, besides the pieces hamilton beach mixer that came with the oven. The controls are easy to understand, with knobs to set the cooking method, temperature, and time. Depending on the lighting, sometimes it was difficult to read the settings since they are printed with silver ink on a shiny black surface. You should also know that as soon as the oven is preheated, the timer starts counting down.
There’s a converted-to-Fahrenheit selector on the temperature indicator, but the markings are oddly spaced. You can get either 425 °F or 390 °F, but nothing in between (we chose 390 °F). But this idiosyncrasy didn’t negatively impact any of the items we cooked—most toaster ovens heat at least 10 to 15 degrees over or under the set temperature anyway. Some Hamilton Beach toaster ovens have preset programs for common foods, such as bagels and pizza. These are especially useful when you’re new to the world of toaster ovens and aren’t sure of the cooking times for your favorite foods. You’ll want to think carefully before buying your new toaster oven to make sure it has all the features you need.
As with all models, you want to remove the pan and toast bread directly on the oven rack. Otherwise, they encountered no issues—the Hamilton Beach is great for any simple toasting and baking jobs. A standard quarter-sheet tray (and if you put a quarter-sheet tray on each of its two racks, that’s equal to a standard half sheet pan you’d use in a full-size oven).
This model comes with the most basic accessories, including an oven rack, a baking pan, and a crumb tray. More-advanced digital models will alert you once the oven is preheated to a set temperature, but the Hamilton Beach lacks this feature. The instruction manual recommends allowing 5 minutes for the toaster oven to preheat. Even so, a charming, old-school ding does alert you when the timer goes off. We preferred this subtle sound to the ear-shattering beeps on some digital models, like the Wolf Gourmet Countertop Oven.
You’ll save lots of cooking time—the convection mode in this toaster oven cooks food up to 25% faster by circulating heated air evenly around food as it cooks. When compared to all of our other cooking and baking tests, we feel the Easy Reach 4-Slice is best at toasting. However, the back-left side of the oven routinely toasted a little lighter than the rest of the oven. Should you encounter any problems with the FlashXpress under its one-year warranty, contact Panasonic.
This can be annoying if you’re not quite ready to put your food in the oven, but we think it’s easy enough to adjust the timer once you’re ready. The timer on our upgrade pick, the Breville Pro, also begins counting down once the oven is preheated. However, it will pause the timer when you open the oven door, whereas the Cuisinart doesn’t. The FlashXpress’s hamilton beach toaster one annoying quirk is that you can’t add time or change the temperature midway through a preset cooking cycle (although you can change the toast shade settings). This means you have to turn the Panasonic off and back on again to adjust it. That said, the controls are clearly labeled and straightforward to use, so we’re willing to overlook this drawback.
However, the Easy Reach didn’t score as well on the ease of its interface. Although consisting of only two simple knobs, the oven’s operation isn’t overly intuitive or as simple to use as it appears. That said, it’s not overly complicated, but it does require a few peeks at the owner’s manual. As for accessories, this oven comes with hamilton beach juicer a baking pan, oven rack, and slide-out crumb tray. The Hamilton Beach Easy Reach 4-Slice is able to do most basic cooking tasks well and does so at a great price. You can’t fit huge portions in this compact oven, but what does fit inside will be cooked or baked consistently better than what you’d expect from such an inexpensive oven.
The Hamilton Beach Air Fryer Sure Crisp Toaster Oven is considerably smaller and less expensive than the other models we tested. It doesn’t sport electronic controls or a lot of fancy features and settings. While it’s baking performance was disappointing and it’s not large enough to roast a chicken, it shines at toasting and does a credible job of air frying. The Hamilton Beach has manual knobs that adjust the temperature (from 150 °F to broil/toast mode), the function (broil, toast, and bake), and the 30-minute timer.
A smaller silver pan and a coordinating broiler rack can be used for roasting small foods as well as for baking. Also, the FlashXpress has a somewhat flimsy, stamped-metal crumb tray (versus the sturdier trays that come with our other picks). After only a few cycles, the FlashXpress tray was already warped. But the warping didn’t make the tray overly difficult to pull out or to clean.
We also see a place for the Easy Reach in an adventure van or other type of RV. It takes up little space and is lightweight, simple to use and to clean. When we combine its lower price with its ability to compete with higher-priced models, we feel the Easy Reach is a great buy. A black pan can be used for roasting, baking, or catching drippings when using the rotisserie.