We have owned a couple of sandwich toasters since moving into our home a few years ago but as they get a lot of use from my teenage step children, they don't tend to last too long in our house. My eldest step son recommended that we try some toastabags as him and his girlfriend had tried them and had gotten on really well with them and it would save me buying yet another sandwich toaster.

I got a pack of two off Amazon for £4.99 which I thought was a little expensive until I saw that each bag can be used up to 300 times which would make the bags really good value for money. I personally couldn't see how a flimsy product like this could last that long but I had heard really good things about these so I thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt and try them.

You basically fill the bag with the ingredients of your desired 'toastie' with the ingredients between two pieces of bread as normal and whack the bag in the toaster. The toaster then forms a toastie in the bag and then you simply remove from the bag when done and serve. It sounds really simple and I have to say that I was quite surprised that it did work but only to a certain degree.

As I had heard good things about the bags, I think I was expecting a toastie to the standard of a sandwich toaster, but it wasn't to be. I got a decent toastie but I found that the two pieces of bread didn't really bond together so when I took it out of the bag, although the ingredients had cooked thoroughly and evenly, it was more of ingredients on toast rather than a toastie as it all seemed to fall apart but if I had cooked it for any longer, I think it would have been overcooked.

Still, it did taste good and was a toastie to a degree so I was impressed with it in that sense as without the bag, you wouldn't have been able to make a toastie like I did in a normal toaster as it would have created far too much mess inside the toaster and ruined it. I loved the fact that there was no mess whatsoever from these bags and although we haven 't used them 300 times yet, they have been used regularly by the kids since purchasing them and I am surprised to say that they are stronger than they look as it is still perfectly intact and is showing no signs of wear and tear so I would say that they will last a good while before needing replacing and they weren't expensive at all so they are good value for money.

I know I have had a couple of sandwich toasters blow up, but you can get them so cheap nowadays from the likes of Argos and Tesco, that I think I would probably rather purchase a proper sandwich toaster for around £7-8.00 than pay for these purely because I think the quality of the toastie is better in a sandwich toaster but I love the fact that there is minimal cleaning required with these bags as a sandwich toaster can be a bit of a pain to clean. These are quick and convenient and take up very little in the way of storage but they don't fit in all toasters. You either need a toaster with wide slots or one with variable slots or else the bag filled with the desired contents will not fit in the toaster.

Overall, these aren't bad actually but still don't match the quality of a toastie produced by a sandwich toaster in my opinion and I think I will be purchasing another sandwich toaster sometime in the near future as I just love toasties made in one of these. As an alternative though these aren't bad at all. They are well priced, do the job and create no mess whatsoever. They cook food consistently and evenly but the main gripe for me was that the toastie didn't really bond together and didn't look as appetizing as it should but it still tasted pretty good.

In summary, these were pretty good but I still personally prefer a sandwich toaster and will be purchasing one of these in the future instead of using these bags regularly.