You might be able to say goodbye to burnt toast for good with the arrival of the Cuisinart SimpliTouch XL Colour Touch Toaster (for £59.99 via Cuisinart) which has features I've often wished while making my morning bagel.
Kitted out with a 'vibrant colour touchscreen' complete with a six shade toast menu, this snazzy appliance is cutting straight to the heart of the burnt breakfast conundrum.
From lightly golden to deep brown, the gradient scale engineered within this toaster should, in theory, stop the guesswork that sometimes occurs with even the best toasters and deliver your toast to you perfectly done, every time. Here's a full overview of its features.
This toaster also features extra large slots for speciality breads like sourdough or fresh bagels.
The big USP of this toaster is the shade menu, which Cuisinart claims is as easy to use as tapping your chosen toast colour and waiting for it to emerge. The six toastiness levels range from a very light shade to a deep golden, so if you're more of a charred toast lover, then you'll have to move outside of the included settings.
It's unclear how the technology within this toaster works, or if the shade menu is simply a visual aid to go alongside a timer setting, but the huge colour touchscreen across the side of this appliance certainly looks impressive.
It's not just your standard loaf of bread that's catered to with this toaster – the shade menu can also be used when toasting your favourite sourdough, bagels, muffins and fruit breads with dedicated settings for each. The bagel setting in particular sounds intriguing, with the temperature set so that the inside of your bagel is toasted while the springy top is maintained by only being lightly warmed.
At the bottom of the screen you'll also find buttons for defrosting slices, adding an extra 15 seconds to finish your toast off and a setting for using one side of the toaster at a time.
The 'XL' in the name of this toaster refers to the appliance's extra large slots, which Cuisinart claim are 40% bigger than the market average – 14cm x 17cm compared to 12 x 14cm.
I've tested dozens of toasters in my time as Ideal Home's Kitchen Appliances Editor and I've never quite found my dream toast setting. With the easy visual guide on this toaster, I might be about to find my go-to shade.
Could you see yourself finding this built-in shade guide handy?
