De'Longhi Ballerina Electric Kettle, 360° Swivel Base, Water Level Indicator, Cord Storage, KBD3001.GR, 3000 W, UK PLUG, Green

Product Information

As well as a decent variable control to give you your chosen perfect shade of brown, you should also look for defrost and keep warm functions. If there’s just one or two of you and you’re not a fan of fancy loaves then we’d say a simple two-slot model with just a couple of functions will probably suffice. Two slot models are also better if you’re a bit tight on space as it’s a product that usually has a permanent, easy-to-access home on your worktop. You heard that right - the technology within this toaster is automatically monitoring the toasting time of your slice, so that it never overdoes it. And once you've got to optimal toastiness, you can save your settings for the next round. It’s also easy to clean, but it’s better suited to standard-sized loaves, so probably not your best bet if you use homemade bread. And the shiny look shows up every mark.

Combining style and sophistication, the new De’Longhi Ballerina Toaster and Kettle Collection is just the thing to brighten up your kitchen.A reheat button usually activates a short (one-minute) cycle to heat up cold toast. Note that on some toasters, this function is marked on the timer dial instead of being a separate button. Similarly, the “a bit more” button gives your toast an extra 30 seconds. We also think the De'Longhi Ballerina Toaster is reasonably priced for how luxe it feels to use. Its design was noticeably sturdy during testing and the toast comes out with far fewer lines on the bread. During testing, the Elegancy performed well. We were able to achieve a nice even brownness using all the settings for the most part, although sometimes the level of browness did vary – something we see a lot on mid-price toasters. The defrost setting works best on a lower setting and doesn’t dry out bread too much. What’s more, we found it very easy to clean thanks to crumb trays that are easy to remove. All in all, this is a nifty little toaster with some great functions at a decent price.

Perfect for smaller and solo households, the catch is that it only comes in white with a grey panel, so colour fans will have to look elsewhere. There is no doubt that having matching accessories such as a toaster and kettle adds to the look and feel of your kitchen, and the design of the Ballerina Collection really stands out. Better still, it’s a lot cheaper than redecorating your kitchen and takes much less time. Previously, I had a boring stainless steel toaster and kettle and it looked pretty drab and unexciting. Now, with the simple addition of matching accessories, my kitchen has been given a total facelift. The Cuisinart Style Collection 4 Slot Toaster is the perfect choice for bagel lovers. It's a more common feature in American toasters to have a bagel setting, which will toast the inside of the bagel while leaving the outside nice and chewy, but because Cuisinart is an American classic brand, we got to experience the joys of a bagel setting for ourselves. One thing to note is that you should place the bagel with the outside facing in if you want the inside to be toasted on the bagel setting.High lift saves you from burning your fingers by pushing the slots up so you can retrieve your toast safely. A bagel setting is handy for anything, like bagels or English muffins, that you want to toast on just one side. The two wide toasting slots were more than big enough to cope with doorstop slices carved from a whole farmhouse loaf, as well as standard supermarket medium pre-cut bread. For a gorgeous-looking toaster if your budget is a bit bigger, look no further. The results were impressive: toast was evenly done, and it’s faster and more power-efficient than anything we’ve seen at this price. The slots are really wide, too, so getting bigger items to fit isn’t a problem. Speaking of which, there’s a bagel mode so you can get them crunchy on the outside and doughy on the inside – as nature intended.