Cuisinart Compact 4-Slice Toaster Makes Perfect Toast Everytime!

When we first got married, my husband brought his "El-Cheapo" toaster with him. Basically he had bought the cheapest toaster he could find. After almost 2 years, the El-Cheapo toaster finally started to break down. It was no longer toasting on both sides of the bread and often burned one side or the other. We decided it was time to invest in a toaster that would last us for a longer time.

We chose the Cuisinart® Compact 4-Slice Toaster from Bed Bath and Beyond for a few reasons. First of all, we had a 20% off coupon for the store so we knew we could get a good deal. Second, it was one of the cheapest toasters at the store. We wanted a nice toaster, but we were not willing to spend $100 for one. This Cuisinart was priced at $50 so it was only going to cost us $40 once we applied our coupon. The third reason we picked this one is because it could handle 4-slices at once. I remembered what a pain it was to cook for 2 or more people when you could only toast each person's bread individually. Being able to toast 4 slices at once is a definitely time saver and allows us to eat at the same time.

Even though it is a 4-Slice Toaster, you can still toast as little as 1 slice. There very first slot is marked as "1" and the product paperwork tells you that if you only want to cook 1 slice, you will use this slot. The toaster is smart enough to know there is only one slice in there and it won't burn it. The slots are split into 2 sets so at any given time, 2 of the slots are being used and the other 2 are free. This is great because if your husband asks for toast after you've already started your toast, you can throw it in the other two slots without having to wait for yours to be done.

The toaster slots are extra wide (1.5") which is great for bagels. My old toaster would take a bagel, but it was really jammed in there and the back would often burn. With this Cuisinart, the bagel has plenty of room to breath and comes out perfectly cooked.

There are different options so you can enjoy the perfect toasted item. If you have a bagel, there is a button specifically for Bagels that makes sure your bagel is toasted to perfect. The toaster adjusts it's cooking mechanisms based on the button you pushed. The other two options are Defrost and Reheat are great for items that came straight out of the freezer, or for items that just got cold and need a reheat. Finally, there is a Cancel button which pops the toaster back up and stops toasting immediately. This is very useful since sometimes you may have overestimated the time you need to cook the item. I've used other toasters that did not allow you to cancel and it gets very frustrating when you can't take your toast out early.

There are 9 settings so you can make it as light or as dark as you want. I haven't even tried to go all the way to 9 yet since usually anything less than 4 is good enough for me. But if you want your items really dark, you can do it! If you just want them warm, choose setting 1 or 2 and the bagel or toast will be warmed up without being toasted much. I do this a lot when I just want to warm something up and not necessarily toast it.

Cleaning is a breeze with a crumb tray that pulls out from the back. You just pull this out, dump it, and your toaster is good to go! You will rarely have to clean the inside of the toaster since all the crumbs fall to the bottom. The outside can be cleaned just by wiping it down whenever you wipe down your kitchen. We choose black because black won't show stains much, but white is also available.

You can't go wrong with the Cuisinart® Compact 4-Slice Toaster. Sure there are fancier and more expensive varieties, but I can't really see anything special about those pricey options. There are also cheaper options, but why go cheap if you will just have to get a new one in a year? $50 is not bad for a good toaster, especially if you plan to get a lot of use out of it. Enjoy!