If you’re looking to substitute your large kitchen oven with something more energy efficient that likely has a lot more bells and whistles than your traditional oven, then the Breville BOV450XL is one oven you should check out. The Breville BOV450XL is one of the most energy efficient countertop ovens around.
What this means is that if you utilize this toaster oven rather than your traditional oven more often than not, your power bill will go down.
Power saving features
One reason is due to the smaller space. While you may still bake a 9 inch pizza in the Breville BOV450XL, you’re only warming up a fraction of the region you’d do in an ordinary oven. The 2nd power saving feature is the Element IQ technology. That’s a fancy way to say that the heat goes only where it is needed inside the oven. The 4 different heating components only heat up as required, depending on what you’re cooking at that time, working a bit like a dimmer switch on a luminaire. This implies your cookies will come out totally baked, while you’ve saved several dollars on your electricity bill.
Convection explained
You may not be aware of how convection works in an oven, but you have likely heard the term. Convection ovens distribute the heat using fans, meaning the heat is more uniformly dispersed, so the heating elements do not need to work as hard to heat the food. This is comparable to putting a fan in front of your air conditioning at home. Convection provides the heat a small push and keeps it circulating, therefore power is employed from the existing heat without the oven having to crank out more. Perhaps you won’t utilize it for everything, but I bet you will use it for most things once you get in the habit.
Not suitable for:
The only thing you cannot use it for is truly big items, like a large turkey, but who makes that each day? You will find it cooks a roast just as well as it bakes brownies. This oven has 8 preset capabilities to bake, broil, roast, make bagels, pizza, cookies, and warm or heat your food.
Conclusion
Overall this toaster oven offers a great bang for your buck and it’s one of the best rated models on Amazon.com. It’s dimensions are 16x13x9 inches and currently it comes with free shipping if you’re in possession of an Amazon Prime subscription. The only negative we read about it is that the oven gets real hot so be careful what type of counter top you place it on!
Great alternatives:
Hamilton Beach 31142 Toaster Oven
This toaster oven from Hamilton Beach comes with a bagel function that toasts the cut side and warms the round side and has a capacity for four slices of toast. It comes with the following five functions: broil, keep warm, bake, toast and last but not least the bagel function.
It easily fits a 9 inch pizza and comes with three knob controls for easy turning. This oven is just released so doesn’t have an awful lot of reviews yet but it already received some great user reviews.
Black & Decker TO1313SBD Toaster Oven
A very affordable model from Black & Decker that’s very high rated. It has a 4 slice / 9” pizza capacity same like most of the models that we discuss here. The timer counts 30 minutes and it comes with the following four options: toast, broil, bake and keep warm. A baking pan and broil rack are included as well as a removable crumb tray. Something else worth mentioning is the Even Toast Technology which is self-explanatory of course.
