Breville Smart Oven A Red Hot Purchase That Will Have You Seeing Green

Posted by Greenbee on November 28, 2009

I have been searching for just the right toaster oven for months.  I got tired of having to heat up my whole oven when I just wanted to make a quick batch of cookies and I hated having my counters and cabinets cluttered with various toasters and broiler units.  With the family also is working on living a more greener life, I wanted something that was energy efficient.

After reading a dozen product reviews on various consumer sites and magazines I finally had narrowed my choices to a few toaster ovens, and believe it or not the Breville The Smart Oven was not on that list.  I had been searching for Toaster Oven and the Breville was called a Smart Oven so it never really came up on my various searches.

Then one day I came home and my husband told me he had a surprise for me and when I opened the box it was a the The Breville Smart Oven.  I thought Smart Oven?! I wanted a Toaster Oven!  I went on one of my rants of how people never listen to me and I had finally found the one I had wanted and was on the verge of buying it.  He told me he saw how much I kept putting off on the purchase and wanted to get me one finally so I would stop searching and finally be able to enjoy a toaster oven.  To which I replied but you bought me a Smart Oven not a Toaster Oven!

After ranting back and forth he told me he would take it back and I could get the Toaster Oven I wanted but he also said he told the sales woman he needed a Toaster Oven and she suggested the The Breville Smart Oven.  I finally glanced over and read over the box and saw it did have a toasting feature so that kept me interested and I read on.  Next I went online and decided to search out the The Breville Smart Oven and see what this little guy was all about.

After about an hour of reading reviews and learning about the Smart Oven on consumer reports I had a foot in mouth moment.  Not only was it the no.1 pick on consumer reports but it was everything I had wanted in my toaster oven plus more!  It had convection oven oohh ahhh but it did not have the rotisserie feature and it was about 100 usd over what I had wanted to spend.  My husband now feeling he was for once in the winners seat quickly told me that the energy efficiency will make up a lot of the cost difference and he used a coupon!  which got him 20% off saving him over 50.00 usd.  I love that man of mine!  He was also letting the victory get to his head and pointed out that I had never once rotisseries anything and would I every need that feature given our family are vegetarian… good point I thought.  I had really only wanted that option cause I thought if my mom or in-laws visited and wanted to rotisserie something they could, a poor reason to have a feature now that I think about it.

I unpacked my new smart oven and began putting it through various tests.  Toast came out perfect, cookies were so chewy and good.  I found this little smart oven was toasting, cooking, baking better than any appliance I owned!  I realized after 2 weeks I had not used my huge oven once!  I love the convection oven it cooks everything perfectly!  I can not rave enough about this little guy.  My husband beams as I tell him about how much I love my gift and would never doubt him again, something I will probably not live up too but I said it and did mean it at the time.

Okay all the glory aside there a con.  I realized soon after I would want to purchase an addition wire rack and Baking Pan to help me utilize the The Breville Smart Oven’s space allowing me to cook more at the same time.  There are three rack slots but the Smart Oven only comes with 1 Wire Rack.  I went to the Breville website and found the Cutting Board & Serving Tray so I added it to my shopping cart but could not find anywhere the Baking Pan nor the Wire Rack.  I finally called Breville and was told they had the items but not on the site.  I had to put the order in with them and then accounting would call me back to get my credit card number to process the order.  No tax or shipping was included with the purchase but I found it very odd that they had to call me back to complete my purchase.  In a day of ID theft I would wish they would allow a person to place an order and take payment at the same time.  Other than that one gripe I love love love my Smart Oven.  However if anything should arrise in the future I will make sure to update you all

I do give the Breville 5 out of 5 green stars!  I thought of taking away 1/2 a star for the unusual way Breville has you place orders but I can not fault the Smart Oven for the companies poor consumer policies.