KitchenAid Toasters

Posted 2010

KitchenAid are another premium manufacturer of toasters, who, alongside Dualit and Magimix compose a triplet of makers who have styled their machine on past decades, usually with a hint of toasters from the 1950, 60's or 70's.

It's not hard to see why, those decades composed a high point in style and workmanship. And by styling an appliance and building it to those standards, it should prove popular. Of course, Dualit have by and large just stuck with their design for fifty years.

The one downside with sticking with the same design for fifty years, is that it's very hard or impossible to incorporate new features in it. Therefore, Dualit's standard toaster comes with nothing but a crumb tray, lift lever and variable browning timer.

KitchenAid on the other hand have been able to incorporate far more feature into their retro machine, which aims to combine style, workmanship and features. The above image shows KitchenAid's show stopper, the Artisan. Priced around £150, the build quality and materials used are top draw. It's features include,

• High lift facility
  
• Variable width slots
• Variable browning control
  
• Mid-cycle cancel
  

Mid-cycle cancel and variable browning are achieved through the use of electronic heat sensors. The material used for the casing is stainless steel.

Dualit have obviously taken notice of KitchenAid's combination of advanced feature, retro styling and consistent performance. They have launched the below toaster, which is a totally new design for them.

By moving away from their standard fifties designed toaster, highlighted on this site's logo, they have been able to fit alot more features into the above toaster, such as,

• Peak and pop, to view the bread while toasting
  
• Defrost setting and
• Mid cycle cancel button
  
• Bagel Button function to brown just one side
  
• Eight heat settings
  
• Accurate browning control
  
• Extra wide thirty six centimetre slots