The Breville Mini Smart Oven: A Smart Buy for Small Spaces
A mini oven that roasts, toasts, bakes and broils.
Dec. 16, 2011 — -- With minimal kitchen counter space, I am forced to purchase appliances that have more than one function. Breville's Mini Smart Oven is a small oven that packs a big punch: It toasts, bakes, roasts and broils.
The Mini Smart Oven is the smallest in the line of Breville Smart Ovens. The other ovens are larger in size and have a few more bells and whistles, but at $149.99, the Mini Smart Oven is the most affordable.
Last weekend, at a cocktail party I hosted for 20 people, I put the mini oven to the ultimate test.
How it fared:
With my regular oven toasting large amounts of pita chips and the homemade mini quiches sitting on the counter needing to be baked, I preheated the Mini Smart Oven. It took less than five minutes to preheat. I popped in the quiches and set the time. When I saw they needed a few more minutes to bake, I pressed the "a bit more" button and added a few more minutes to the time.
The Mini Smart Oven automatically shuts off when the timer expires, which allowed me to run around the kitchen doing other things that needed to be done. The Mini Oven toasted graham cracker crumbs for cheesecake crust in the oven while I made the cheesecake filling. It baked cheese puffs while I prepared the spinach and artichoke dip. It reheated the sausage bread as I made peanut brittle.
My favorite features:
The Mini Smart Oven has a pull out tray on the bottom that collects crumbs. (Gone are the days when I would turn my toaster oven upside down over the garbage can and hit it ferociously, crumbs flying every which way.)Another outstanding feature is that the oven door is labeled with where to place the rack depending on what you're doing. Place it on the top to broil, the middle for toast, bagels, cookies and pizza, and the bottom to bake, reheat and roast.
The dial on the front ride side of the mini oven allows you to choose what you are cooking, and the oven provides heat from the top, bottom, or both, accordingly.
Final words:
Breville has done a wonderful job. This appliance functions as well as a much more expensive oven. It's the perfect excuse to toss that old yellow toaster in the trash and start cooking for your next fabulous party.
The Breville Mini Smart Oven is available at Williams Sonoma.
Related Stories
ABC News Live