Cuisinart TOB-40N Custom Classic Toaster Oven Broiler, Brushed Stainless and Black Reviews

Compact cooking versatility and modern design make this countertop Custom Classic™ Toaster Oven Broiler an ideal choice for your lifestyle. Brushed stainless and black housing is outfitted with a wire rack, broiling rack and baking/drip pan to handle your tasting, baking, and broiling needs. The nonstick interior and removable front crumb tray are easy to clean. The Always Even™ Shade Control monitors the toasting temperature and will automatically adjust the timing to produce the desired toast every time; auto slide-out rack means convenient, hands-free loading and removal of foods. The cool touch handle and automatic shutoff means safety is ensured.
ENDLESS FUNCTIONS: With 1800 watts of high-performance power you are able to toast, bagel, bake, broil, pizza and keep warm including other options
CAPACITY: Fits 11-inch pizza or 6 slices of toast. .5-cubic feet inside oven toaster, Always EvenTM toast shade control offers consistent results slice after slice
MUST-HAVE FEATURES: The toaster oven has a stainless steel front with a cool-touch handle and easy-grip dials, easy-clean nonstick interior which makes cleaning up easy. Automatic shutoff safety feature, Always Even toast shade control for even toasting and a convenient auto-slide rack to remove cooked food easily
INCLUDED: This beautiful stainless steel toaster oven comes with a baking pan, wire rack, front removable crumb tray with cool touch grip and a recipe book
LIMITED 3-YEAR WARRANTY: Refer to user manual for troubleshooting steps and questions surrounding warranty policies – this product is BPA free

Reviewer: Adam
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Goldilocks of Toaster Ovens
Review: My more expensive, super fancy Krups toaster oven recently kicked the bucket after about 4-5 yrs of service, and it was time to replace it. While my Krups was a good toaster oven (before it died), it took up a lot of space on the counter, it was expensive to buy, and frankly it had a lot of features (convection) and interior space that I just don’t use and don’t think are necessary in a toaster oven. So when I shopped for a replacement, I decided to go downmarket a bit.Problem is, the toaster oven market is bifurcated towards two extremes and IMO neither is ideal. On the low end, are super cheap pieces of junk. On the higher end, are expensive behemoths that take up all your counter space and have a lot of features that most of us will never use. Now I’ll admit, for someone who lives in say a small apartment and doesn’t have a regular oven, the second type may make sense. But I live in a house with a regular kitchen and I have a regular oven and a cooktop, as well as a gas grill and a big green egg. What this means is, I’m not going to be roasting a whole chicken or searing steaks or baking any cakes or cooking thanksgiving dinner in my toaster oven. What I mostly use my toaster oven for is 1) toast! and 2) heating up things like leftover pizza or empanadas or really anything else that will get soggy in the microwave but you don’t want to wait for the regular oven to preheat when alls you want to do is heat up a single item, and 3) odd things like maybe an open faced sammich or something. So really, anything small that you want to heat up quickly yet still have it be crispy. I have a hunch a large percent of toaster oven owners use them pretty much like I do and want a quality product but don’t want a $300 large convection toaster oven taking up all our counter space, but also don’t want to trust the $20 hunk of junk that looks like it will die in 2 weeks and can’t toast evenly.This toaster oven is a good choice because:1) It’s simple – toast, bagel, bake, broil. The analog controls are simple to use, and unlike a digital keypad it “remembers” what your last setting was (for say toast darkness or oven temp), which you are likely to use repeatedly. Some reviews complained the controls are hard to read, and I don’t find this to be a problem although I do have good near-sight vision. The crum tray is easy to remove, clean, and replace.2) It works – nice even toasting. Heats up quickly for reheating items. I was surprised at how light it was out of the box, but it works well so this doesn’t appear to be a problem.3) It’s a fair price – way cheaper than the expensive convection ovens, but not so cheap as to be garbage4) Small footprint – doesn’t take up much counter space yet still big enough for everything I want a toaster oven to do. Honestly if something can’t fit in this thing I have no problem firing up the regular oven.Now, there seem to be 2 basic complaints on this model and I don’t find either to be a problem:1) No timer – who cares? I’m only using it for toast (which does shut off when it reaches desired darkness) and to heat up small stuff that only takes a few minutes, I can hang around and keep an eye on it. Again, this seems like more of a problem for people who want to bake a cake or something and I don’t know why you’d want to use a toaster oven to do that.2) A lot of people complain that the toast comes out too dark – I’m puzzled by these complaints as I find it extremely easy to set the toaster to desired darkness. The medium setting comes out pretty much what I’d expect medium toast to be, and more importantly you have infinite adjustability with the analog controls so it shouldn’t take you much experimenting to figure out how you want it. One person even complained they had this for over a month and couldn’t get toast that wasn’t burned – I’d say this person either got a defective unit, or they are severely challenged when it comes to the operation of small electronics and/or employing the trial and error method.Overall – there should be more toaster ovens in this segment. If you don’t routinely roast whole prime ribs or do hard core baking in your toaster oven, this should suit your needs well.Edit: Well, 3 1/2 years later, one of the coils was coming apart and my girlfriend threw the Cuisinart away because she claims that’s a fire hazard! Replacement is a Kitchenaid unit purchased from Costco (which also doesn’t have a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles, although it’s a bit bigger). The new Kitchenaid definitely does not toast as quickly or evenly as the trusty old Cuisinart! I wish we’d just bought another as it’s replacement. 3 1/2 years isn’t too bad for a toaster oven that was used fairly often and not really taken care of, rarely cleaned etc. I stand by my old 5 star review.

Reviewer: Mark
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Yay – We found another one!!!
Review: This is the same model of a previous toaster oven we had. We gave the old one to our daughter for college (it still worked well) and got this one for us because we loved the old one. It’s compact and first in a small corner or the kitchen. It has a bunch of settings and toasts and cooks like a charm. It’s a tiny bit smaller on the inside than the old one, which was a little sad; but other than that, it’s great! Very good product!

Reviewer: Cathy
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good quality. Too big. Gets very hot on the outside.
Review: This is the best of a bad lot of toaster oven choices. They’re all too big, much bigger than they used to be, and they get too hot on the outside – enough to burn a poor unsuspecting person who touches the oven cabinet while it’s on. That said, this oven works well: easy and intuitive to use, keeps a constant temperature, and does a great job of toasting. No problems using the controls despite the small print issue that others have mentioned.Cuisinart, I appreciate that you made a toaster oven that’s now considered “small”. Could you make one smaller yet? I only needed something that could fit a couple of bread slices and also heat up food or cook a couple of hamburgers during the summer – I don’t need to roast a turkey in it, I have a perfectly good oven that can do those jobs. And, fix that problem of the dangerously hot outer surface??? I knocked a star off for these issues.

Reviewer: HoneyJackson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Beautiful, sleek, compact perfect Toaster Oven
Review: This toaster oven is the right size, slim, sleek, compact and it works beautifully for my needs, saving me time using my oven in the kitchen. Very cost effective. I highly recommend this toaster oven, especially for small spaces.

Reviewer: Mauricio
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Like new
Review: Well packaged, like new, as described. Works flawlessly. Very well built, used for toasts and pizza.

Reviewer: Bob from Mass.
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Amazon stepped in to help get me Cuisinart replacements.
Review: Update: I contacted Amazon and asked for a pro-rated price for a replacement because the front bottom heating element now is shaped like an elongated “L”. I looked over many of the old reviews, and a failed heating element is a common theme. Many people think the bad heating element is a fire hazard. I’m guessing not, but that doesn’t change things because there still could be a safety issue.By the way, Amazon kicked the ball down the road and gave me Cuisinart links. I was surprised, frankly. Amazon is usually more helpful than that. If Amazon really cared, they could put pressure on Cuisinart to give FREE returns, not the ones with “handling” and mailing costs. If they DON’T want to use their marketing muscle, they should just pull the Cuisinart line (that would be the pro-active response)–or, at the very least, stop selling this product.In the meanwhile, I suggest anyone else who had heating rod problems to rewrite your reviews and give it one star.Mine is three and a half years old. I noticed “bumps” on the heating element in front lately, so, based on the other reviews I’ve read, I’m guessing we’re due for a heating element failure. My wife loves this unit. While it does have flaws that are mentioned by other reviewers too (knobs hard to read, uneven toasting sometimes, too hot on the outside, “steam” coming out door so you mistakenly worry there’s a fire), we’ve been pleased overall. It’s nice looking, it does the job of a small oven, and it fits a small counter space. We liked it enough to get one as a present for our daughter-in-law last year.If Cuisinart would only make the heating elements available for consumer replacement, this would be a gem. I mean, how hard would it be to replace them for a reasonably handy person? And, let’s face it, the heating elements are usually the first thing to go.Update #2 When Cuisianart belatedly replied to my inquiry about my bad heating element, I sent them this message:”When I did not hear back from Cuisinart in a reasonable amount of time, I tried the seller, Amazon. They allowed me to return the unit for a full refund. I bought a Hamilton Beach toaster oven, even though Amazon would have given me another Cuisinart like the one I had. I really appreciated Amazon’s prompt attention to the matter. All I was looking for, really, was an appropriate amount taken off the price of the new unit I needed to purchase. But Amazon went the extra mile.”Your company [Cuisinart] should know that many reviewers who have had a similar problem–and there are MANY–worry about fires caused from the deformed heating element. I would say you have a potential class action liability on your doorstep, and your company chooses to ignore it, playing this game of low-level customer service instead. You know, there is NOTHING on the Cuisinart website that addresses this problem in any way. Amazing.Sadly, the toaster oven worked nicely; too bad the planned obsolescence is three years or less.”This was the email I got from Cuisinart Customer Service (belatedly):”Subject: bad heating element in toaster ovenValued Customer, Thank you for your inquiry. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. In order to properly assist you, we are in need of the serial number from the bottom of the unit. We will also need to know whether or not this unit has been replaced previously. Please reply, with all previous correspondences attached, to this email, along with the color of the unit, and your complete shipping address. We invite you to call our Customer Service Department at 1-800-726-0190. Please keep in mind the Customer Service Agent will not have access to your e-mail information. The hours of operation are 7 AM -11 PM EST Monday through Friday and 9 AM – 5:30 PM on Saturdays and Sundays, excluding major holidays.”

Reviewer: Marc allain
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: We had the same one for 10 years. Happy to find the exact replacement. Great smaller size than what is out there now. Does great bagels.

Reviewer: Salomon Duek
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: El mejor hornito

Reviewer: Tool junkie
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: We purchased this oven to replace our broken pop up toaster. It’s a very straight forward, easy to operate machine. If you are looking for something with all kinds of bells and whistles you may want to look at other options. It does a great job of toasting bread, which is what we were looking for, but it’s so handy for warming up leftovers or even cooking. With just the two of us we often do not use our range oven, we just cook our meat in the toaster oven on bake or broil. This machine runs about the cost of a decent pop up toaster and does so much more, I would never go back.

Reviewer: KC
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This oven is a bit bigger and fancier than my old Betty Crocker one. It has multiple functions which I have tried and work great. It’s extra large for bigger meals and has a nice look. I don’t like the black exterior but looking at the stainless steel one, it would have cost $30+ more for a stainless steel one and more functions/features I probably wouldn’t use. I normally just bake in my oven.I am curious about that metal piece in the oven on the left hand side. I find it gets in the way when you are baking at the middle level. Does anyone know what this is for? I love the fact that the crumb tray is a removable tray vs the hinged one from my old oven. If you’re looking for durable, affordable, and stylish, this oven fits the criteria.Pros:StylishMulti functionsPull out crumb trayLarge cooking surfaceCons:Black exteriorNo timer

Reviewer: Kelly C.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Although this toaster is a little larger than what we were looking for, it has performed perfectly so far and looks nice on the counter. The hooks on the door that pull out the rack are very handy and have made removing items from the toaster very easy. The toasting function is very consistent, and the unit heats up fairly quickly for broiling or oven functions.