Customer Reviews

Cuisinart TOB-155 Toaster Oven, Stainless and Black

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My husband said he needed a toaster oven for his work so I told him to take ours and I'd buy a new one. (yay!) I went shopping all around town looking at different models... wasn't too impressed with what I saw. The few I DID like I came home to read horror reviews about on amazon. I finally found this one and I believe all the possitive reviews are right. This warms up quickly and toasts perfectly. It looks very nice and seems to be excellent quality. Its very easy to use and I LOVE the touch buttons and digital display. Within minutes of plugging it in I successfully toasted half a frozen bagel as an experiment/snack and it was toasted perfection!! The options are very handy and work great. For the Bagel I just pressed toast-defrost-bagel and selected the darkness setting. I realize now that my old toaster oven was drying food out and heated unevenly. I have also cooked a pizza in it and it was done quickly and evenly also. The only complaint is what was mentioned about having to be careful not to touch it when it's hot. The handle doesn't seem to get hot but just behind it on the metal it does. It is possible you could be burned that way, I did jerk my hand back once on casually opening the door(and I have small hands). That doesn't deter me from loving this toaster oven but I will be careful when it gets very hot. My husband wants to take this one to his work... I said no way! :) With Amazons good price and free shipping its well worth it!

I've had this Cuisinart toaster oven since last August, and use it several times a week for baking or broiling. I usually cook for one person (me), and I don't like to heat up my big oven just to cook a chicken breast or two.

It performs consistently well. Heating is even (no "hot spots" that I can find), and it preheats to the desired temperature very quickly. I've used it to cook pizza, chicken of all kinds, fish (it does really well broiling bacon-wrapped scallops), and roasted vegetables. I like the fact that it has two rack positions, and you can "flip" the rack so that you have 4 height options for the rack.

One of its strongest points is the interior size. You can fit quite a large pan inside with no problem. It is a bit on the bulky side -- the footprint is just a little larger than my old toaster oven, but this one is quite a bit taller. Something to think about -- you'll need some space for this. I have it tucked into the corner of my kitchen counter under the cabinets, and it stays nicely out of the way until I'm ready to use it.

It's also easy to clean -- partly due to the size of the interior, and partly due to the easily-removed crumb tray.

Now, for the minor design flaw. The stainless trim on the glass door under the handle wraps around to the inside of the door, which means it is exposed to the heat of the oven. That also means that the part of the trim on the *outside* heats up to the same temperature. The handle itself stays cool, but that trim strip underneath gets hot enough to burn. I'm sporting a new burn on my left hand as I type this from this evening's adventure with roasted potatoes. I've had this thing for over 6 months, used it dozens of times, and I still manage to burn myself on it once every couple of weeks or so. You REALLY have to be careful. Either use an oven mitt, or use a hot pad and hold it so that it covers that trim strip.

This is not a fatal flaw in my view -- it's more of an inconvenience, albeit one that can cause some pain of you're not careful. I'd give this 4.5 stars if I could --

Toasting
It toasts evenly, and there are 7 levels of done-ness to choose from. But it doesn't toast dark brown without putting the bread in twice.
~edit 5/22/2009
If you hit the 4-6 slice button you can get darker toast on the first try. ~

Baking
The TOB 155 cooks pretty evenly for a toaster oven. Mine seems to run hot, baked goods finish a few minutes sooner than in my regular oven. I've baked biscuits, banana bread, chicken, frozen fries, frozen fried chicken, baked potatoes and corn bread in it. They all came out very nicely.

Broiling
I broiled chicken, and it came out very nicely. The broiling pan that comes with it is very sturdy. And the door props open part way.

Other Features
* Crumb catcher... I like it. No more dodging the heating element when cleaning up cooked on spills.
* It has handles on the outside at the base which are handy for turning the unit around when you want to empty the crumb tray.
* Two positions for the rack. And the rack itself is designed to sit higher or lower on each position if you flip it one way or the other.
* The manual. It has tips for optimal toasting, rack positioning etc.
* Construction. This unit seems pretty sturdy.

Disadvantages
* The cord. At 30" long, it scarcely reaches to the other side of the unit. I bought a heavier household extension cord which works fine. At first I used an ordinary cord, but when I used the oven just for toast it became almost too hot to touch.
* The price. Surely someone can make as good an oven for less!
* Footprint. My breadmaker takes up less counter space. Currently the oven sits on top of my microwave.
* The timer ... its piercing. On the other hand, its hard to miss.

Bottom line
I like my new toaster oven, and have recommended it to friends who bought one for themselves. As many reviewers of toaster ovens have said, they don't make 'em like they used to. I'd say this one is the way they used to make them, but you sure pay a premium for it.

I researched toaster ovens several places - America's Test Kitchen, Consumer Reports, and Amazon reviews. We will be empty-nesters soon and I wanted an toaster oven big enough to use everyday instead of using my wall ovens for just the two of us. I'm very happy I decided on this oven. (I chose the black housing instead of stainless steel because I think it will be easier to keep clean.)

I set out to roast potatoes in my cast iron skillet (which fits in the Cuisinart toaster oven), so I set the oven to 375 degrees and started chopping shallots and garlic. The oven was hot before I could peel the first shallot. In my wall oven, preheating would have taken 20 minutes and the potatoes would take 45 minutes to bake. The potatoes took 20 minutes in this oven. Then I baked fish and it was done in a few minutes, too. Everything was browned and baked evenly.

I toasted a test slice of bread - prefect.

I had been leaning toward a Krups, but so glad I didn't. There was no prep before using like I read about with the Krups. Much less expensive and not nearly as many problems as Krups owners listed, either.

The only reason I give this 4 stars instead of 5 is what so many reviewers said. The metal trim around the door gets HOT enough to burn. I'm keeping an oven mitt and tongs next to the oven.

I just bought the cookbook "Cooking for Two"Cooking for Two: 2009,The Year's Best Recipes Cut Down to Size I think the combination of the smaller oven and recipes from this cookbook will work well for our paired down household.

This is the first toaster oven that I can say is fantastic. The toast is perfectly and evenly browned, bagels toast perfectly, and it is large enough to toast 6 slices of bread or 2 large bagels at once. I love the defrost/toast setting as I can finally get a frozen waffle that stays crisp for more than 5 seconds after toasting. There is a countdown when something is toasting which helps - at first it seemed that is was going to take a long time to toast something, but we quickly got used to the timing - and it's well worth the wait. Also, knowing the timing really helps when preparing a large family breakfast, which we do often. The oven works great as well - things bake evenly and more quickly than our regular oven. It's easy to clean, doesn't take up too much room on the counter, and has an attractive style. The rack slides out for easy access and toast placement. One thing we learned, though - the metal door gets very hot on the inside (duh?), so be sure to only use the outside handle - one of us burned a finger not knowing someone had recently used the toaster and grabbed the door on the inside. I would definitely recommend this product - best I've seen!

This is the second Cuisinart toaster oven that I've had. The first one was a white one, and although it performed beautifully, I replaced it because the paint over the door chipped and came off, making it unsightly. I bought another brand in the interim, and it was a total non-perfomer - thankfully dying after only 1 year. When I saw that the new Cuisinart model addressed the paint chipping problem I was very happy and bought a new one. It is working beautifully, just like the first one. AND, it is still looking good!

I read all the reviews on similiar Cuisinart models comparable to the TOB-155 and choose this one because of the stylish two-toned look of the black on stainless. The TOB-155 heats to temperature quickly and does a great job cooking. Easy to use, I had the unit out of the box and ready to cook in minutes. I love the digital buttons, settings are quick and clean-up is simple.
Only negative I found is you can burn yourself easily if your not careful, (I did it twice) the outside get's very hot and I have learned to use a oven mitt when opening the oven door.

I'm changing my review because, today, 2.5 years later, I noticed two cracks in what I thought was stainless, but is in fact plastic made to look like "brushed chrome"! One crack is in the middle, directly above the control panel, the other vertically near the bottom of the control panel--even the Cuisinart customer service agent was surprised; he too thought it was chrome. As per their warranty, Cuisinart is sending me a new unit, at least the company stands by their products. Overall, it's been an excellent unit, never had any other problems, but beware of the cracking issue, apparently it's still an issue with these units. Curious to know if anyone else has had this problem?

It takes about 5 minutes for it to toast bread, but the toast is fine. For me that is not a problem because the rest of breakfast takes about 5 minutes too. As a oven and a broiler I love it. It heats up much quicker than my big oven, it seems to heat evenly and broils just fine. No longer do I use a big oven to make 4 pieces of garlic bread! It isn't the easiest to clean and the oven shelf does not pop out when you open the door so if that's important look elsewhere. It operates like a full sized oven and you just pull the shelf out. And like a real oven you will need hand protection. On the up side of having a door like that, you can pull the shelf out far enough to stir food or rearrange food that is cooking. I've had it a couple of months and I love it. The controls are easy to master, I like the sound level of the timer, I like the solid build of it. I have high hopes of keeping it around for years.

Having had a Delonghi, I wanted to try another brand. After doing some research, I settled on this Cuisinart. Since I have a double convection oven, this version was just fine. It's easy to figure out, toasts anything from bread to bagels very well and can also defrost without drying things out. I've cooked dinner in it a couple of times with excellent results (meats, fish and veggies) My only minor complaints are having to get used to Not touching the door itself when retrieving something out of there (that sucker's hot!), but that's what the handle is for. (you have to watch your knuckles, though -- not a big deal)...also, the crumb tray is only removable from the Back -- a little inconvenient, but when considering the whole, again, not a big deal in an otherwise a perfect toaster oven.