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One-minute evaluate
In case you’re in search of an equipment that’s full-service, versatile and space-saving, one that may ship the crispy air-fried chips of your goals, then look no additional than the Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven. Whereas Cuisinart is finest identified for its meals processors and varied different kitchen home equipment, the model has extra lately been dipping its toes into the air fryer market with nice success.
The Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven, identified within the US because the Cuisinart Airfryer Toaster Oven, is a multi-functional equipment that gives seven cooking features; two particular modes for cooking paninis and toasties and for roasts or pizzas, in addition to the usual choices to maintain heat, grill, toast, bake, and, in fact, air fry.
Cuisinart’s focus has been to current fashionable, dependable home equipment to market, constructed with an intention to remodel your kitchen from a purposeful room right into a extra convivial area – and this air fryer mini-oven completely matches that aesthetic. This equipment’s stylish casing and dial controls have a distinctly retro really feel, but are easy sufficient to suit into kitchens of any model.
The Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven is definitely roomy, providing a big 17-liter capability. It contains two cabinets, that means you’ll be able to cook dinner evenly throughout totally different ranges, too. Nevertheless, its air-fry capability is just round 3 kilos / 1.3kg – though, because of its width, there’s larger area to unfold your meals objects when air frying, resulting in extra crisp outcomes. Within the field you’ll additionally discover three non-stick trays – an air-frying basket, a baking tray, and an oven rack. Be aware that whereas Cuisinart states that these trays are “easy-clean”, this wasn’t our expertise; nor are these trays dishwasher secure.
On take a look at, we had been impressed by the entire cooking settings we tried – the large caveat being that cooking occasions and the temperature will probably want adjusting to attain one of the best outcomes. For non-meat dishes, we wanted to set the temperature to about 25°F decrease (roughly 10°C) than the recipe or Cuisinart’s personal info booklet really useful.
The Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven could also be bigger than a few of the best air fryers (opens in new tab) obtainable, however when you think about you could probably dispose of your toaster, panini grill and even your oven, for smaller households the trade-off may show worthwhile.
Value and availability
- Checklist worth: $229.95 / £250.00
As talked about above, the Cuisinart Airfryer Toaster Oven is understood within the UK because the Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven; and on the time of writing, this equipment wasn’t obtainable in Australia. We examined the UK model for this evaluate, and it’s value noting that there are slight variations between fashions. Our model arrived in matte black, whereas the US mannequin is clad in stainless-steel, plus the dial labeling is barely totally different.
It’s the one air fryer on supply from Cuisinart within the UK, and because of this you pay a premium for it; the mannequin is a good bit cheaper within the US. Nonetheless, for its uniqueness available in the market, its design and efficiency, we’d say the worth isn’t in any respect unreasonable.
Together with the oven and trays, the Cuisinart Airfryer Toaster Oven additionally comes with an instruction guide that features plenty of cooking suggestions, pointers and finest practices to your new equipment.
You should buy the equipment straight from Cuisinart (opens in new tab) or via Amazon (opens in new tab), or Target (opens in new tab)within the US.
- Value and availability rating: 4/5
Design
The Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven measures 35 x 40 x 31cm (h x w x d), with its US counterpart coming in at 14 x 16 x 15.5 inches; notice that in use, it requires that you simply depart 100mm of clearance on either side for security causes. It’s one of many bigger air fryers we’ve reviewed – however when you think about that it provides a further six cooking modes which may scale back the variety of small home equipment you want in your kitchen, it’s a good trade-off. The US mannequin weighs in at 21lb, with the UK mannequin 12kg, so it in all probability isn’t an equipment you’ll need to be shifting between cabinets and counter tops with any regularity.
Whereas its 17-liter capability seems spectacular at first, until you get your fingers on a second air frying basket, which sits beneath the Cuisinart-supplied one (and run the chance of interfering an excessive amount of with the airflow), the precise air frying capability is a reasonably common at 3lbs. Nevertheless, this mannequin is wider than the vast majority of home equipment in the marketplace, that means you’ll be able to obtain a greater unfold of meals objects whereas cooking, for extra crisp outcomes. We discovered there was enough space for about two and a half parts of fries cooked to perfection; or three, if you happen to’re prepared to sacrifice a few of the crispiness.
As talked about in our overview, the Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven comes with three non-stick trays: an air frying basket, a baking tray, and an oven rack. None are dishwasher secure. Whereas dishwasher-friendly equipment aren’t a given with such home equipment, they definitely would have been welcome right here; the Cuisinart’s wire air frying basket proved robust to wash clear having cooked sticky or fatty meals akin to rooster. The mannequin does include a detachable crumb tray, nevertheless.
On the entrance of the windowed oven you’ll discover 4 management dials for choosing the cooking time, temperature, perform and degree of toasting. The timer might be set from 0-60 minutes, and the temperature might be set between 250-450°F / 90-230°C. Whereas the dials match properly with the enjoyable, retro aesthetic of the oven, analog controls are synonymous with imprecise measurements, which might be a problem when cooking some trickier dishes. As such, you’d be properly suggested to keep watch over your meals whereas it’s cooking. Be aware that there aren’t any devoted preheat settings or such steering within the directions with this mannequin, though the oven does warmth up tremendously shortly. Neither is there a shake or stir reminder when air frying, a characteristic generally present in devoted air fryers to make sure even crisping.
Efficiency
- Produces even, brown outcomes
- Vast tray area delivers larger actual property
- Numerous condensation build-up
For the reason that Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven comes with an array of features, we had been eager to check as a lot of them as potential. We had a go air-frying homestyle candy potato fries, frozen thick-cut fries and rooster wings; we baked a cupcake, and used the roast and pizza setting to cook dinner a pizza.
For our frozen thick-cut fries, we set the temperature of the mini oven to 440oF / 230oC per Cuisinart’s directions. Since this was our first take a look at, we determined to permit the oven to preheat for five minutes earlier than placing in our fries for 12 minutes, shaking them mid-way via cooking. In letting a few of the warmth out to shake our fries, we in all probability nearly saved our meals from oblivion; by the tip of the 12 minutes, the fries had been just a little too brown, and just a little dry.
We tried once more, this time following the air fryer-specific cooking directions discovered on the fries’ packaging, which steered cooking at 350oF / 180oC with none pre-heating – Cuisinart claims this mannequin can warmth up in 90 seconds. Whereas they took just a little longer to cook dinner at quarter-hour, the outcomes had been completely crispy, golden fluffy fries.
With these learnings in thoughts, we moved on to rooster wings. We had been delighted to seek out we may comfortably match 9 wings within the basket – spectacular capability for an air fryer. You may in all probability match in additional if you happen to layered them, though we’d advise in opposition to this if you happen to’re in search of super-crispy outcomes. Following Cuisinart’s pointers, the rooster wings had been cooked at 390oF / 200oC for 20-25 minutes. Cuisinart doesn’t supply any info on how a lot oil to make use of, so we adopted our normal measure, utilizing ½ tbsp oil to evenly coat the wings. We turned the contents of the basket midway via cooking, and after 25 minutes we had a plate stuffed with scrumptious, crispy, moist rooster wings. Cooking in a traditional oven would have taken an hour, so this was an enormous win.
One slight quirk that we discovered whereas utilizing the air fryer is that the entrance window can shortly turn out to be fogged up with condensation – and judging by on-line buyer critiques, we’re not alone in seeing this. The guide does give passing point out to the truth that this may occur, however provides no solutions on the right way to cease it. Having used windowed air fryers earlier than, we all know that is definitely potential; however we haven’t seen it happen as ceaselessly because it did on the massive glass pane of the Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven. We additionally observed loads of steam escaping from the left-hand aspect of the door – which once more, was noticed by different prospects on-line.
For our third take a look at we made homestyle candy potato fries, which had been thinly reduce, lined in cornflour after which drizzled flippantly with ½ tbsp oil. We cooked these at 390oF / 200oC for 14 minutes, as soon as once more shaking on the midway level. The outcomes had been pretty good. A few of the fries had been burned just a little on the ends, however total they had been pretty crispy on the skin with a splendidly comfortable texture inside. We’ve discovered candy potato fries significantly onerous to nail with out a deep fryer, since their softer texture and construction doesn’t lend itself to air frying as properly, so these outcomes do not shock us an excessive amount of.
To check the roast and pizza perform, we purchased a pre-made pizza base and topped it with mushrooms earlier than cooking at 350oF / 180oC for a fast 10 minutes; preheating isn’t obligatory. Whereas this knocks only some minutes off the cooking time we’d have required in an everyday oven, each little helps! The pizza got here out completely and evenly cooked, which may’t be stated for the marginally soggy, irregular outcomes of some home ovens.
Our cupcakes had been cooked at 350oF / 180oC for simply 18 minutes, which, in comparison with our home oven that additionally wanted pre-heating, saved us 6 minutes. The cupcakes had been completely cooked, though they didn’t rise fairly as a lot as our oven-cooked batch did.
We discovered that for the primary 4 or 5 makes use of, our mannequin of the Cuisinart Air Fryer Mini Oven produced some fairly disagreeable chemical smells. Nevertheless, we had been happy to seek out that these smells dissipated following a couple of makes use of.
For optimum efficiency and longevity, Cuisinart stresses in its product info booklet the significance of recurrently cleansing this mini oven. We definitely observed much more moisture droplets and oil than when testing different air fryers; nevertheless, this mannequin can be far simpler to wash because of its form, measurement and frontal entry.
The air fryer was splendidly quiet throughout use and didn’t go louder than 54.8dB on our noise meter. There have been consumer reviews of the US mannequin changing into exceptionally scorching throughout use, maybe attributable to its stainless-steel exterior, however the UK mannequin didn’t undergo the identical points.
| Attributes | Notes | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Value & affordability | If we’re scoring this as an airfryer, it’s pricier than loads of the competitors, however because it provides a lot extra we’re pretty proud of the worth for cash. | 4/5 |
| Design | Whereas the retro aesthetic is to not everybody’s style, this mini oven is a straightforward but stylish piece that may go well with most kitchens properly. | 4.5/5 |
| Efficiency | Typically talking, it carried out properly on take a look at, however because the consumer expertise concerned a lot tweaking and guesswork, we’ve got to tug down the score barely. | 4/5 |
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
- First reviewed: August 2022
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