In my lifetime toasters - though a humble appliance one might say - have
come a mighty long way, I remember my Mum's first two slice manual
toasting job with the doors on either side.
Completely manual was the word, one inserted the toast on either side of
the toaster through doors that hinged out and one had to turn the toast
mid-way through the cycle and then remove the toast at the end when it
was thought the toast was brown enough.
Naturally the smell of burning toast was something I experienced on a
frequent basis in the early part of my life.
We are now in the golden tech age and Breville, the manufacturer of
fantastic kitchen appliances have realised this too bringing us a whole
new range of appliances that make the jobs they're intended to do easy,
fun and - most important of all - tasty.
Others I know have long since purchased the
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
and have raved long and loud about their purchase.
Time has come for me to upgrade appliance's in my kitchen so - given the
excellent references I got when buying an Optigrill last year - I
thought I'd give the
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
a try.
This toaster does look rather odd when placed on your kitchen counter, a
square stainless steel type box so its only when you take a close look
at the
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>that
you truly start to appreciate the work that's gone into the design
of a truly high quality product.
The
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
is a four slice toaster, a scaled down two slice version is
available if that's your preference.
If one moves their hand along the toaster from left to right they notice
a series of 10 push buttons in all - 5 for each of the two slice bays -.
The Start/Cancel buttons can be identified by the size, they're bigger
than all the other buttons.
On the front of the toaster toward the bottom are two slider controls
which adjust for bread thickness, I use a thick toasting loaf when
toasting and have found that the sliders at 3 quarter their travel to
the right seems to be enough for this sort of bread, you may have to
experiment yourself for your particular toasting bread favourite.
So what do you do to acomplish the simple task of toasting some bread in
the
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>?
Well its usually as simple as inserting at least two slices into
the machine and pressing the "Start/Cancel" button.
When the button is pressed the bread is automatically dropped into the
toaster and toasting begins, its at this point I think that we should
talk about what the rest of the buttons do.
The button next to the start button is the "Quick Look" button, press
this whilst toasting and the bread will come up out of the toaster so
you may check on the toasting progress, the toast is then dropped back
into the machine and toasting of the bread resumes.
The third button toggles between 3 toasting modes, standard toasting is
the default.
If this button is pressed before the "Start" button at the beginning of
a toasting cycle the mode of the toasting changes to "Crumpet" toasting
mode, pressed a second time and the toasting mode changes to "Fruit
Loaf" toasting mode and pressed a third time the mode reverts to the
default.
The next button along is the "Defrost" mode, if you had bread in the
freezer before bringing out to toast press the "Defrost" button beforee
the "Start" button to put the toaster into "Defrost" mode so the toast
is properly defrosted whilst toasting.
The last button is "A Little Bit More".
Should your toast be underdone when the toasting cycle completes then
press this button for "A Little Bit More" toasting.
How do you know when your toast is ready? The
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
sounds a 4KHZ beep when the toast pops up ready for you to grab
and put on a plater for buttering etc.
Actually the beep sounds of this toaster - whilst not terribly loud -
are one of the appliances strong points given the frequency of the
beeps, they're heard at 4KHZ rather than the all-to common 2KHZ that
other appliances in my kitchen use thus there's no confusion in
listening to what beeps are coming from where.
The
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
is easy to clean with the usual slide out tray on the bottom, the
only other cleaning requirement is to wipe the top of the machine
with a dry cloth every now and then.
Have I ever burnt any bread in this machine? I can honestly say I
haven't accept for the time when I put the toaster - accidentally - into
the wrong toasting mode - crimpet toasting mode instead of fruit loaf
toasting mode - and that was entirely my fault.
The
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
is available in Australia/New Zealand for $159 and may be
available in the UK so do a Google on
Breville
BTA845<http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-Breville-BTA845-The-Smart-Toast-4-Slice-Toaster-Brushed-Stainless-Steel-/232222681842?var=&epid=1510171748&hash=item36118ceaf2:m:mTkXUh-_rP-ynI4-FQ-Fa-g>
and see what you come up with.
I bought several Breville appliances at the same time to get a better
deal so in the next installment I'll take a look at the Breville smart
jug which puts a tech twist on making a humble cup of tea.
--
**********
"Live each day as if you were goiing to die tomorrow, learn each day as if you were
going to live forever"
