Back to Basics TEM500 2-Slice Toaster
- Cancel Button: With Cancel Button
- Number of Slices: 2 Slice Toaster
- Extra Wide Slots: With Extra Wide Slots
- Crumb Tray: With Crumb Tray
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Nifty little appliance, takes little counter space
Pros
Makes pretty good toast, and pretty good eggs. Easy to use.
Cons
Ahem. It could be more durable.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Sure, get one. It's fun, clever, and probably will last until you're sick of it.
My wife loves, and I mean loves, this nifty little toaster. She actually calls people into the kitchen and fixes them a poached egg just to show off. I wonder about her sometimes.
We are very sad though because after about a year it stopped doing eggs. The toast part is fine, but the egg cooking part doesn't. I think what we will do is buy another one, as we like this one so much, and heck, they're pretty cheap. Is it bad karma to return the broken one in the new one's box? I don't want to do anything naughty this close to Christmas, just in case Santa is watching.
We've been getting FREE eggs because our neighbor has chickens that like to lay eggs in our yard. The rooster didn't lay very many eggs, though. Fortunately they sent him off to a Rooster Rescue place. He was crowing a lot at 4 AM, they must have forgotten to reset hime for Daylight Savings time. Stupid bird.
Anyway, the way you make eggs in this thing is that you add water to the little round side, then you put an egg in either the little tray that comes with or you can put 4 eggs in their shells inside the cooking area. What happens is, the water boils and makes steam to cook the egg, then the cooker shuts off when the water is gone, so if you add a lot of water you get a harder cooked egg, or add a little water and get a softer egg. The included measuring cup tells you how much to put in, we have found you can use a little less but i guess we like softer eggs.
I have always been very careful to hand wash the egg cooking dishes and they are perfect, no peeling, no scratches. No physical part of the toaster broke. Probably some part of the electronics inside went bad, I did look inside (I have a sort of engineering bent) and I thought it looked pretty nicely constructed, although there are certainly a lot of parts that might go bad (2 separate PC boards, 3 relays, heating elements, temp sensors, timers, etc.) You really do get a lot of electronic doohickeys in there for your $28.
We are very sad though because after about a year it stopped doing eggs. The toast part is fine, but the egg cooking part doesn't. I think what we will do is buy another one, as we like this one so much, and heck, they're pretty cheap. Is it bad karma to return the broken one in the new one's box? I don't want to do anything naughty this close to Christmas, just in case Santa is watching.
We've been getting FREE eggs because our neighbor has chickens that like to lay eggs in our yard. The rooster didn't lay very many eggs, though. Fortunately they sent him off to a Rooster Rescue place. He was crowing a lot at 4 AM, they must have forgotten to reset hime for Daylight Savings time. Stupid bird.
Anyway, the way you make eggs in this thing is that you add water to the little round side, then you put an egg in either the little tray that comes with or you can put 4 eggs in their shells inside the cooking area. What happens is, the water boils and makes steam to cook the egg, then the cooker shuts off when the water is gone, so if you add a lot of water you get a harder cooked egg, or add a little water and get a softer egg. The included measuring cup tells you how much to put in, we have found you can use a little less but i guess we like softer eggs.
I have always been very careful to hand wash the egg cooking dishes and they are perfect, no peeling, no scratches. No physical part of the toaster broke. Probably some part of the electronics inside went bad, I did look inside (I have a sort of engineering bent) and I thought it looked pretty nicely constructed, although there are certainly a lot of parts that might go bad (2 separate PC boards, 3 relays, heating elements, temp sensors, timers, etc.) You really do get a lot of electronic doohickeys in there for your $28.
