When my mum asked what I wanted for Chrimbo I didn't hesitate to ask for a toaster, we moved house a few days before Christmas 2010 and I finally had room in the new place for a decent sized toaster. I'd heard positive things about the Morphy Richards Accent toaster, so when I saw the sleek design in the flesh I decided that was the one I'd ask for. I've been so pleased with my purchase that I've since bought the matching kettle (the pyramid shape) and was eyeing up the red coffee maker until Mark bought me a super-duper pod machine; I'm definitely going to add to my Accent collection at some point as it's expanding pretty rapidly, and I've learned from experience that the quality is there.

I chose the red as I'm slowly getting a red and silver theme going, it's an absolutely gorgeous cherry colour in a finish which catches the light for an oily  look. The curved design gives it a retro appearance which I love, the toaster actually reminds me of a jukebox from the front! So cool!

There are no less than nine browning settings on the toaster, we tend to use number five for medium sliced bread and six for thick. I've tried every setting and there's a huge difference between them; one leaves you with slightly crisp raw bread, nine cremates anything in it's path. My daughter loves thick bread done really well on number nine but I think it would be too dark for most people.

The toaster takes quite a long time to pop up, I've never owned a toaster before so can't really compare it with anything but know the grill is definitely quicker! The problem for me is that I like Weight Watchers bread, this is very thin airy bread which toasts very quickly. The toasting time in this toaster is so long that the heat dries the bread out and turns it crunchy instead of crisp.

I love how perfectly it toasts a thick slice of Warburtons bread, giving it a crisp outside but keeping the bread inside fluffy and delicious. Especially when it's saturated in butter!  I've also toasted crumpets and muffins in the toaster and they've been fine, I'm not one for crumpets anyway and personally think they go too hard in the toaster but the kids eat them by the packetful and none of them ever use the grill anymore.

The two sides (each side holding two slices of bread) have independent controls so everyone can have their toast how they like it. The browning is controlled by a dial, with buttons to select for frozen bread or reheat. The frozen bread function is good and handy for when I fancy some of the hot cross bun loaf slices I've had stored since last Easter. It doesn't actually take much longer to toast the bread from frozen than fresh and the toaster does such a good job that there is no difference in the taste or quality either.

Reheat has actually been used more than I thought it would be. Having a young baby means sometimes I'm summoned before I get chance to butter the toast. A quick blast on reheat will bring the toast back up to a temperature where I can comfortably spread the butter on top and have it melt yummily through the toast.  You have to be careful not to let it reheat for too long as it can make the toast go too hard and stale feeling, but it's definitely saved a few slices of gone-cold toast from being binned! Another thing is the fact that the toaster isn't very loud as it pops up, this means that sometimes I miss it if I'm not standing in the kitchen waiting for it to finish. The reheat is excellent for those times as again it saves me wasting toast which is sometimes stone cold by the time I realise it has popped up.

The cancel button does just that, cancelling the cooking process and immediately popping the toast up. Having discovered that setting five will brown my toast perfectly, I haven't had to use this function much. It's handy for if I'm toasting bagels and other irregular shaped food as these won't necessarily toast as evenly as bread, mind you I tend to still use the grill for bagels as I find this is the best method for toasting them to perfection.

The crumb tray on this Morphy Richards toaster is well designed and easy to empty. It would hold a lot of crumbs I think but I empty it very regularly as I cannot stand crumbs anywhere, a daily empty after making the kids' breakfast toast is enough to keep the toaster clean and also prevents crumbs making a mess under and around it.

One other thing to mention is the fact that the toaster isn't completely stay-cool. The front and back panels (the red parts) do stay cool, but the sides and top of the toaster get very hot to the touch and stay hot for a good while after you've finished using the toaster. The cable is the perfect length for where my toaster is situated, it's a little shorter than I thought it would be but I guess most people will want their toaster close to a power point so this shouldn't be too much of a problem. I suppose you'd struggle if you don't have many sockets in your kitchen, but if that's the case I'm sure you'll know all about extension cables already!

I absolutely love this toaster; it's gorgeous and funky (gorgeously funky!) and works a treat, the only downside is the £50 price tag - but then again, I never paid for it!