Toast Away! (Tesco Value Sandwich Toaster)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Tesco Value Sandwich Toaster
Date:	26/08/09 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap & Easy to Use.

Disadvantages: Hard to Clean.

When we moved into our new house not so long ago I think we went a bit crazy on our first shop and horrifically over our budget too judging from the amount we spent that afternoon. However I consoled myself with the fact that we'd not only bought enough food to feed our entire street (and the surrounding streets too) for about a month but we'd also bought several electrical products that would hopefully last us a long time to come. One of the products we invested in was the Tesco Value Sandwich Toaster which as the name suggests comes from the Value range at Tesco. I can remember my parents having a sandwich toaster while I was growing up and we did tend to use it quite often, it was ideal for making a quick yet healthy snack when we didn't have much time and so I thought it'd be an ideal additional to our kitchen cupboards.

The sandwich toaster itself comes in white almost oval shape with a red and green heat indicator on the top of it. It's about 24cm in terms of depth, 12cm in terms of width and 26cm in terms of height which makes it slightly smaller than your typical sandwich toaster. You can open the sandwich toaster quite easily by opening the clasp button located on the front side of the toaster to reveal the black toasting plates which are indented with the shape of bread to show you where you need to place your sandwich for toasting. As far as I can tell you can't remove the toasting plates from the actual toaster meaning you have to clean them while they're still connected to the machine. Overall the sandwich toaster is very neat looking and quite small too, it does certainly look like a cheap budget product and I do tend to keep it hidden in my cupboards!

The toaster doesn't come with any sort of crumb tray to catch anything falling out of the end, as it is at a slight angle your sandwich filling can drop through the sandwich and run out of the ends so a crumb or drip tray would have been a handy addition. The cooking surface is advertised as being non stick meaning any food you place on it shouldn't stick but I always find it best to use some sort of oil spray which you can pick up for under £2 normally in supermarkets. To use the sandwich toaster you simply need to plug it into the wall at which point you'll see the red heat indicator light heat up on the top. Once the red light goes off and the green light comes on it means that the toaster has reached its required temperature and you can place your food inside ready for toasting. This normally takes about two minutes which is quite quick in my opinion.

Once you've placed your food inside the red light will come back on, I'm not sure if this is due to a reduction in temperature from opening the grill or from the fact that the food has been placed onto the toasting plates. However the red light does come back on and the green light goes off at this point, I've found that the green light normally comes back on after about another minute to show the temperature is back up to where it should be. It's up to you to use your discretion or guesswork to tell when the sandwich has fully toasted, obviously this does depend on the thickness or your bread and the filling and there is no indicator of this on the toaster itself. Once your sandwich is toasted enough, in your opinion, you can open the toaster and remove it from the plates. As long as you've remembered to use an oil spray it should come out easily without sticking.

In terms of time taken it really does depend on what you're toasting and how well toasted you like your sandwiches to be. I find for your typical cheese toastie it takes about two to two and a half minutes to fully toast although I often leave it in a tiny bit longer to ensure the cheese is all melted. It's also worth noting that you should only place your filling towards the centre of the bread, I always try to leave a one to two centimetre border around the edges of my bread as the filling does tend to spread out when it melts or toasts. It's also important not to put too much filling into your toastie as you'll find that it doesn't all melt or toast if you overfill it, you'll end up with toasted bread and un-toasted filling if you're not careful! Things like bacon will need to be cooked beforehand and added to your sandwich once it's ready or they won't cook.

Now onto the cleaning, as I've already mentioned you can't detach the two toasting plates from the actual toaster which is slightly annoying as I'd have hoped you could just stick them in the dishwasher or at least put them to soak in the sink. However no such luck! Instead I've found I'm best cleaning it with hot soapy water once I've unplugged it from the socket. It tends to just wipe clean, especially if it's still warm I have no problems at all and once it's cooled down I find it relatively easy to just scrap anything off it. As long as you use an oil spray or something prior to cooking anything you'll find there isn't really much cleaning to be done, I've only cleaned it twice since I've had it as tend to find if it's only a bit of oil spray left on it then it doesn't really need a clean every single time I use it. Anything that doesn't need cleaning lots is great in my house!

I've used my sandwich toaster a few times now and have quite mixed feelings towards it, the main issue I have with it is that it only toasts two slices at a time so if you want more than one sandwich or you're making them for your entire family it can be quite a lengthy process. I did realise this at the time of buying so it can't really be a complaint to be honest, but if you are looking for one that makes more than one sandwich don't get this! The second issue is that there's no temperature control, sometimes I'll find that the bread toasts quickly but the filling hardly melts at all so I feel if you could lower the temperature it would perhaps be more filling. It's not as quick at toasting as other sandwich toasters I've used, perhaps it doesn't reach as high a temperature or perhaps it's just not as filling but saying that two to three minutes isn't too long to wait really.

Would I recommend this product? Well yes it's ideal if you live alone or just want something to make a quick snack on, however it does do the same job as a grill and as I already have one of those in my kitchen I probably didn't need to invest in this. It is currently priced at £5.59 which is an absolute bargain price; I haven't seen another one so cheap anywhere else. For the money I paid for it I'd say it's been a welcome addition to our kitchen and I'm sure it came with a one or two year guarantee although I can't quite remember. It would be better if it allowed me to toast two sandwiches at one time as normally both my boyfriend and I are using it but it's not really the end of the world! I do normally use just cheese and ham on it or some peppers but you could try to be a more adventurous than that! So save the hassle of heating up your grill try this!

Thanks for reading.

Summary: A sandwich toaster from the Tesco Value range.