Viante CUC-04E Electronic Toaster Oven with True Blue Enameled Interior

This toaster oven is designed for small apartments. It is only 15 inches wide and consumes only 1350 watts. A standard 15 amp circuit maxes out at 120X15=1800 watts, so this toaster oven lets you plug another appliance into the other electrical receptacle on a standard wall outlet. Other toaster ovens on the market consume 1800 watts and so require a dedicated circuit and they are typically 20" wide and so use up more precious counter space. This oven has 2 rack height positions: center and high. For even browning of toast on both sides, the center position should be used because this puts the bread equidistant from upper and lower heating elements. Putting the rack in the high position will result in toast that is burned on top and not toasted on the bottom. The low power consumption means food will take longer to cook but that is not the whole story. It takes time for heat to penetrate food so the longer cooking time results in food that is warm throughout. Fast toasting gives toast that is hot on the outside and cold on the inside. Because their oven cavities are much larger, all toaster ovens take more time to make toast than a toaster so if all you want to do is make toast then get a toaster. This oven is high quality - it is made of stainless steel while cheap ovens are made of chrome plated steel which corrodes after a couple of years. Also, this oven has an internal light and large window so you can monitor brownness. It also has a convection bake setting which guarantees uniform temperatures throughout the oven cavity. So if you have limited counter space and limited electrical power in your cooking area, you should consider this product.

I made the mistake of purchasing this item 100% from the internet [having never laid eyes upon it]; it looked worthy and the specs sounded good, I must say. Upon receipt, however, a couple of issues were immediately apparent: 1/ the fit of the door was poor, with a 1/8" gap at the top right corner [this has become aggravated at the corner and has "spread" horizontally toward the left corner. 2/ the shelf fit so tight so as to be immovable [making food retrieval an opportunity for burn injury]. The other shortcomings became obvious with use: 1/ the "fascia" behind the door handle pops out [somewhat like a pregnancy naval] when the heat elements are energized. Poorly engineered with just a clip of some type to retain the piece. 2/ the clock on the control screen gains about a minute each day, and while this feature is superfluous, its incompetence is annoying. I expect better than this for the price charged.

The product in itself maybe excellent, but it was not what we expected. The inside dimension were smaller then what we needed. Bernie

I bought this toaster oven 2 - 3 years ago from a different vendor (the only U.S. vendor I could find at the time) before it was available on Amazon, so, no, this is not a "Verified Purchase". Having said that, here are my comments: I do not use it as a "toaster", since I don't prepare toast very often. I bought it because I live alone and usually cook just for myself, so I use it to cook 1- or 2-serving meals. It seems a waste to use my large wall oven for small quantities of food; I use it mainly when cooking large quantities, for company or to freeze. Out of all the models available, I selected this one for its interior, small size, and (considering those two qualities) price. I am still happy with my purchase on all three accounts. (1) Most toaster ovens contain nonstick interiors; I will not knowingly use appliances or tools in my house if they contain heated nonstick surfaces or if they have nonstick surfaces that remain in contact with foods for long periods of time. (2) I have a small kitchen, and this oven takes up a minimal amount of space, compared to any other toaster oven that met my number one criterion above. (3) For a toaster oven that met both the previous criteria, the price was great. I use the Fan Bake feature most - rarely the Toast or Broil features, and never the plain Bake feature; I didn't even pay attention to the Defrost feature until reading over other reviews!. For the baking I do, the quality of cooking is good, however, there are some negatives. As I've experienced them, they are: (1) The "manual" is really, really paltry, and there's no where to go online to find better instructions. (2) The outside gets really hot if you use it for extended periods of baking as I do; if your countertop space is limited, as mine is, you have to be very mindful of the proximity of flammable, meltable, or burnable materials (power cords, wooden cutting boards, etc). (3) As other reviewers have mentioned, you can set the timer to a maximum of only 30 minutes. Maybe this is the manufacturer's idea of a "safety" feature, but I think there are better ways to design safety. What it means is, if I am roasting a large sweet potato at 375 degrees F, I have to push the Power button a total of 3 times, waiting the 30 minutes between each time - not convenient. Once I managed to get the oven to bake for more than 30 minutes at a time, but I have no idea how it happened. If there is a designed-in way to do this, there is certainly no hint of what it might be in the instructions, which, as I mentioned previously, are skimpy. (4) If I use the bake feature at a high temperature (400 - 425 degrees F), I've had the experience of the unit shutting off with the pretty blue control panel window turning black. This happened a couple of times; I found it sufficiently unsettling that I do not now leave the kitchen area when baking at that temperature, and I also now usually keep the temperature below 400 degrees. When you unplug the oven, cool it down, and replug it into the power, the window's appearance turns to normal, but I have to wonder whether the oven's internal wiring and electronics are being "baked" by insufficient insulation. I have not had the experience of the oven turning on by itself as reported by some reviewers, but because of the other issues I've had, I now keep the oven unplugged when not in use, just as a safety precaution. In retrospect, when I purchased my oven, there were almost no reviews available to go on. I bought it because it seemed to fit my requirements. If I were now looking and saw that purchasers had difficulty getting responses from the manufacturer regarding safety and quality issues, as reported by other reviewers, I probably would not purchase it. High quality Customer Service from a manufacturer is paramount in my book.

Pros: Compact size; attractive--great for those who would keep it out on a counter; seems generally sturdy with some exceptions (see below); does a pretty good job overall and more efficient than using a full-size oven for small tasks; could possibly replace an oven altogether for a single person who doesn't need to bake or roast anything large; digital display is large and bright; inside light lets you see what's inside while it's cooking. Cons: the handle and the spacers in back take up extra space, making it difficult to store; controls aren't entirely intuitive and are a little more of a nuisance to use than they might be; toasts and cooks a bit unevenly. I got this toaster oven some months ago to replace one that had fallen apart--literally. It still worked, but I thought it unsafe to use when the sides popped away from the top every time I used it. If this one is nearly as durable and reliable as that one was, I'll be delighted with it. I got this model chiefly because of its dimensions--it needed to fit into the shelf of a rolling cart on which I keep all my small appliances inside a cabinet space. This appliance is bigger and bulkier (and heavier) than the one it replaced. With some rearranging, it fit, but in the process of working out the right configuration, before I'd even tried to use it, I bent the connector that held on one of the little hook-like, U or C-shaped plastic things that stick out of the back (which I didn't even register at first--till it bent), so it's loose. I would have taken them off, but they're connected from inside the shell so there's no way to remove them without taking the toaster apart. At first I thought they were for the cord, but the cord is too short to wrap around between them. The only purpose I can think of for them is to insure that the back of the oven-box isn't against anything (like a wall) when in use, but they're just a nuisance for me, as I don't keep the toaster-oven on a counter and don't use it against a wall. Because of the way they extend on one side and the handle extends on the other, the only way I can fit it on the cart with other, smaller things is to put it in backward, so that the handle fits over or between smaller items. It has a larger profile on the counter, too, but smaller than almost any other toaster-oven now available. The capacity isn't bad; I make a small batch of cookies (about 1/2 dozen) frequently and they turn out pretty well. I also use it for the "express" method of preparing a frozen pot pie (microwaving for a few minutes first and then baking for around 15 or so, according to directions on the package). It works just fine (on "convection" setting) and is far more efficient than heating up a full sized oven just for that. I've reheated other things, too, like left-over restaurant fries or onion rings (it crisps them back up), and I use it all the time to thaw/warm bread (I wrap in foil and usually use toast setting. The flatter, the better, so I usually wrap two slices side by side instead of on top of each other.) I haven't tried baking anything else like small cakes or pies from scratch, but I have tried making a fruit crisp with less than stellar results. Most things take a bit of experimentation, at least. The inside of the oven is narrower than my old one, so I can't use its thinner, flatter pan, but this one seems a bit higher inside. The pan that comes with it has a trough for broiling, so it's not ideal for baking, but I've used a left-over aluminum foil-type pan (the kind of thing pastries, spanakopita and the like come in) with some success, though it was necessary to bend the ends up a bit so that it would fit. I haven't tried broiling anything, so far. The controls are not quite intuitive, particularly the settings for toast. I still haven't quite figured out how the setting numbers correspond to the amount of time and the instructions don't help much. You also have to take multiple steps to do anything, unlike an old-fashioned toaster or (non-digital) toaster oven (like my old one) where you could have settings that stayed that way and you just had to push or press something down for relatively consistent toast every time, or, conversely, a regular oven, where you can set a timer, but otherwise, the oven stays on till you tell it to stop, so if you don't know how long something is actually going to take, you can check it and continue cooking till it's done. With this, you have to set a time for baking (it defaults at 30 minutes) and it shuts off, without giving you a loud warning or reminder that it's doing so. On the one hand, this is a plus, because you're less likely to burn something by forgetting to set the timer, but on the other hand, whatever you're cooking might be sitting there, not yet done. You can always use an external timer, however, as a reminder, and with trial and error, you'll eventually get the feel for estimating cooking time. As noted in professional reviews (which I read before buying), none of these multi-function toaster ovens does a great job on toast, but it's not too bad. I rarely use pre-sliced bread, so my slices are likely to be a little uneven, anyway, so I can't necessarily blame the toaster for burning the edge of a slice while barely browning the middle, but even with standard slices, you won't get even browning. Overall, I'm glad I got this. The drawbacks are pretty minor and it serves my purposes.

I've had this toaster oven for about 8 months. I have no complaints at all. Yes, it does take a little longer to toast. But it is a toaster oven, not a toaster so it's going to take a little longer. But it does toast the bread evenly and I like that. The convection oven works great also. I also like it because I have a extremely small galley kitchen with almost no counter space. This unit has a small footprint but still bakes a good sized meal. I like it's construction, stainless steel, that's good and solid. I've had some cheaper toaster ovens and they do not stand up to the test of time. The baking sheets that come with it are also heavy and solidly made. Not like some of the cheap aluminum type ones with cheaper ovens. I got my oven with a coupon so I didn't pay full price. But I am getting one for the office at full price and I think it is worth every penny. And it is backlit in BLUE. How cool is that!

This toaster requires 8 minutes at its highest setting to produce a piece of toast that is not browned on the bottom, and unevenly browned on top. When baking, baked goods are not browned on top. When convection baking, the goods are browned unevenly on top. The only good thing about it is that it doesn't take up as much counter space as other ovens.

This toaster oven looks great, but has a few significant design flaws: 1. As other reviewers have noted, it doesn't have much power, so the simple act of toasting a piece of bread or a bagel takes a minimum of 4 to 6 minutes. Part of the problem is that the rack is mounted low in the unit, so it is too far away from the top heating element. You can flip the rack over if you are toasting small items, which moves it closer to the heating element. 2. There is no on/off switch; the only way to turn it off is to unplug it from the wall. So, if you want to use the clock feature you have to leave it plugged in and on at all times. A minor inconvenience, but still a poor design. 3. The glass door is recessed in such a way that it catches crumbs on the bottom of it. Again, a minor nuisance, but another design flaw. Summary, if you want a $100 toaster oven that takes too long to perform simple functions, this one is for you!