Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven - Heats up my buns, burns my britches

Anyone who has read my reviews knows that I dislike uni-appliances: those appliances that have 1 and only 1 function. Electric can opener opens cans. A toaster only toasts. And don't even get started on electric bagel slicers. So when my wife suggested that we get the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven, I manually counted at least 1 uni-appliance that we could get rid of and replace with the toaster oven. Sounded good to me!

•• What it is ••
The Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven is exactly when every other toaster oven is, exactly what the name implies, a toaster and an oven. You can either put things on toast mode or oven mode depending on what you are making.

•• Features and Commentary ••
The first thing to notice about the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven is the size. A little large than a full size toaster, it takes up about 2 feet of width space on the counter and about 8 inches of depth. The exterior is white plastic with black dials and interior. It's not an ugly machine, but certainly not sexy, either.

The toasting feature of the unit works well, but doesn't exactly toast both sides evenly. A quick glance inside makes the reason obvious: the metal rack inside is closer to the bottom heating element than the top. I don't know that this is a design flaw as much as byproduct of trying to maximize the usable space inside the oven. Had the middle rack been more centered, then you wouldn't have as much headroom.

The layout of the unit is very basic. There is a bake dial, a toast dial and a toast button. The toast button simply turns on the elements and bakes it for a set length of time depending on how high you set the doneness dial. It toasts things well enough, though what you think of as medium, might be under baked. So you'll need to play with the dial to get it right. This leads me to my first complaint: There is no signal when the toasting is done. it just shuts off. No ding, nothing, unless you set it too high and the smoke alarm goes off.

The other major complaint is the lack of a removable crumb tray. The clean it out, you have to wait for the unit to cool down, unplug it (since it has a 3 foot cord), and carry it to the sink. Then unhinge the flap and shake it out. Seems like a rather silly process, so we just don't do it very often.

The middle rack mentioned above is stainless steel and removable for cleaning. It is attached to the front door and when the door is pulled down to open, the rack slides out about an inch or so. This is for easy placement of items in the center of the rack without burning the hair off the back of your hands. The rack unhooks from the door and is removable and fits in the dishwasher.

On top of the rack is a two-piece drip tray/broiler pan. This is removed during toasting, but provides some protection during oven-ing. It consists of a rack and tray and both separate for putting into the dishwasher. We have the bottom tray covered in heavy duty aluminum foil because if you use it a lot it will be impossible to get rid of the cooked on crud that will eventually accumulate. And my wife hates it when her appliances look used.

Where the toaster portion of the Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven tends to under bake, the oven portion has a tendency to over bake. And again, a quick peek inside makes it clear why. When you have something on the secondary drip tray/broiler pan, anything taller than an inch gets the food too close to the top heating element. So while the oven may be at a balmy 350, the act of heating it up to 350 ends up toasting the top of the food. And you can't not use the drip tray or when you make Bagel bites, the cheese will drip onto the heating element below and that's a whole other mess you don't want to mess with.

It should also be noted that this thing heats up like a cheerleader at... oh never mind. The point is, it gets really hot so make sure you keep anything that can burst into flame or melt a few inches away on all sides.

•• Conclusion ••
A decent machine for the price, it's obvious that this budget model skimped on the creature comforts like an chime when the toasting is done and removable drip tray. But it works well for what it needs to do. Just be warned that it is a no-frills machine.