\u201cIt took us 10 years to get this project right,\u201d Tom Groundes-Peace, global category manager and head of research at Breville, said. Groundes-Peace likens the innovation to the electric car: while cars evolved over the last century, they were all variations powered by an internal combustion engine. Until the electric motor.<\/p>\n
As a culinary scientist and research chef, I had the chance to try the toaster and see if it lived up to its hype. I work at the Drexel Food Lab<\/a> at Drexel University<\/a>, where we develop and test food products (including projects for the Guardian<\/a>). We even have a collection of antique toasters.<\/p>\n At a glance$400 at Breville<\/a>What we loved I toasted just about everything I could fit in the Eye Q to see if I could stump it. What about a dark pumpernickel? Would that stymie the sensor? It worked. Sweet cinnamon raisin bread? Worked. A thick slice of frozen sourdough? Also perfectly toasted.<\/p>\n The idea is that because the toaster is monitoring browning, there is no need to adjust settings for thick, frozen and so on. Groundes-Peace said: \u201cWhat we\u2019ve found is that nearly every type of bread changes color \u2013 even a dark rye. It still goes through caramelization. [The sensor] picks up on even minimal changes.\u201d What about frozen slices? \u201dThe Eye Q doesn\u2019t care. All it measures is color. So it will keep going through defrosting until the color changes.\u201d<\/p>\n The model I tested: Breville<\/p>\n Eye Q 4 Slice Toaster<\/p>\n from $400<\/p>\n We also liked the bagel setting, which, with cut side out, toasts the bagel\u2019s sandwich side more, meaning the side in your hand isn\u2019t browned but warmed.<\/p>\n The toaster offers seven shades of browning from light to dark, but if you underestimated the brownness you want, you can also hit the button called \u201ca bit more\u201d, which adds one more shade of toasting on that seven-shade continuum.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the toaster was very easy to clean, with all the crumbs dropping down to the crumb tray. The exterior wiped easily and didn\u2019t tarnish from the heat over repeated use.<\/p>\n A smaller option: <\/p>\n Breville Eye Q 2 Slice Toaster<\/p>\n from $300<\/p>\n It\u2019s a shame that \u2026 Photograph: Faustina Boakye\/The Guardian<\/p>\n We toasted identical slices of bread at every level and were expecting to see an ombre pattern when laid out in order. What we found was more of a mosaic. Setting two was inexplicably lighter than setting one, and setting six a bit less browned than settings five and seven.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to The Filter US<\/p>\n A guide to buying fewer, better products.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n When toasting an individual slice, a diner would likely still be happy with the outcome, as they are all in the ballpark of what to expect. But from a testing perspective, the gradations were not as precise as we would have liked.<\/p>\n Is the Breville Eye Q toaster worth it? Photograph: Faustina Boakye\/The Guardian<\/p>\n It\u2019s a toaster. As in Groudes-Peace\u2019s electric car analogy, both a combustion clunker and a Tesla can get you to and from work.<\/p>\n But for the kitchen nerd or toast lover, this is a revolutionary device that makes really good toast with next to no effort. It is also a new technology that I suspect we will soon see in ovens and other devices \u2013 imagine, for example, if your oven could tell you that your roast chicken<\/a> is ready not only through a reading on a thermometer probe, but also by correlating that doneness with a visual inspection of the skin browning \u2013 and adjusting accordingly. The stuff of culinary scientist dreams.<\/p>\n Breville<\/p>\n Eye Q 4 Slice Toaster<\/p>\n from $400<\/p>\n By the way, what\u2019s the food science behind toast?<\/p>\n Culinary scientists and research chefs<\/a> like me love to use toast as an example for illustrating two food science principles responsible for deliciousness. The first is Maillard browning, the process where heat applied to amino acids and reducing sugars (protein and starch) give us the beloved nutty brownness we crave in pastries, seared meats, and, yes, toast.<\/p>\n The second is the ability to reverse starch retrogradation by reheating food. Retrogradation is a realignment of starch molecules as they cool over time, causing the dry staleness we know from old bread, takeout rice in the fridge, cold cooked pasta and so on. Reheating starchy foods such as these temporarily reverses the process, solving the mystery of why day-old rice is so delicious when briefly reheated as fried rice. The same principle makes toast tasty.<\/p>\n Other pieces you might enjoy from the Filter<\/a>, the Guardian\u2019s guide to buying fewer, better things:<\/p>\n![\"Bread](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bread_being_toasted_in_a_Breville_Eye_Q_4_Slice_Toaster--d0d258b8-3331-4f85-b92f-76f5241003fe-2.0.00.jpeg\")
Bread being toasted in a Breville Eye Q 4 Slice Toaster<\/p>\n
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