Electric Cookware Reviews

If you're interested in poached eggs, don't buy this one. The egg wells are not deep enough to hold a decent size egg. I can't comment on soft boiled or hard boiled, I sent it back.

The 86628 works just fine BUT I bought it based on West Bend's advertized wattage rating of 600W--thinking more is better. In actuality the unit is only rated at 350W. West Bend claims they're changing the misinformation on their site today.
My previous Egg Cooker was an Oster and it was OK.
I prefer my new 86628 because: It's all plastic so the egg holder won't discolor as did the Oster. The water measuring cup allows exact measures not like some others where you add water to the base. The egg holder allows you to remove all the eggs at once and imerse in cooling water so you don't have to handle each egg separately. The 'done' signal is LOUD. I like the positive Off/On switch. Others shut off the unit when cooking is finished. In my opinion that kind of temperature sensitive switching is a weakness. Which is what happened to my Oster. Although the water measuring instructions don't make sence to me, ie: more eggs need less water, I followed the instructions for soft boiling 4 and the eggs were perfect. And AMAZON.com is an excellent way to buy merchandise.

Easy to use and very dependable! We love our egg cooker, if you've never had one, this is a small appliance you will really use.

I had a KRUPS 2-waffle belgium waffle maker and loved it. Flat wore it out. By the time I was ready to get another, I was ready for a four-waffle maker. AFter reading the reviews, chose this one. The thing is a pain to clean up, and the waffles are soggy. Only way to get a crisp waffle out of this is to burn them. Used it twice and threw it away.

First waffle iron failed in the same way as mentioned by others - thermostat wouldn't turn off and the iron got VERY hot and had that electrical smoke smell. Our second one, same iron but different model with the thermostat controls in front instead of on top was defective out of the box. Dark crunchy in the middle, golden brown on the edges.

Don't get one of these. It's my last Cuisinart appliance.

I am impressed with the Cuisinart 4 slice Belgian. I have been
using it for about a month now without flaw. Taking the advice
of one of my elders, I coated the plates with cooking oil prior
to its first use, carefully brushing with an even coat. It was
easily cleaned with a damp paper towel in a matter of minutes,
and has remained that way since. The waffles are evenly browned
on each side, and the next batch comes out as well as the first.
I do reccommend using an oven mit to open the latch, as I have
made it standard procedure in my kitchen. Storage is by far the
easiest part of using this waffler, the cord wraps nicely
around the base and it stands on its front bracket within a 6 in
wide space next to the microwave. To quote my 11 yr old son after
his first bite... "I am in waffle heaven"

I have owned two Hamilton Beach Combination Skillet/Griddles. I returned the first one because the on/off switch malfunctioned and the griddle continued to heat in the 'off' position. I received a replacement Skillet/Griddle and it worked fine for several months but now it does the same thing - the on/off switch does not work. It not only heats in the off position - it gets very hot!
PLEASE NOTE: THE ONLY WAY TO TURN THE SKILLET 'OFF' IS TO UNPLUG IT! In my opinion - these skillets are unsafe and should be recalled.

I have had my Skillet/Griddle for approximately 6 months and I use it almost everyday. I would recommend this skillet for several reasons. You can stir-fry with almost no oil. It cooks a large roast while you are gone. The top is large enough for soup or chili. The grill makes excellent pancakes. This grill is large enough for a crowd or small enough for when there are just two people at home. I am very pleased with my Hamilton Beach Skillet and I think it is well worth the money.

I have owned mine for years, and have purchased three more as gifts for people who wanted one after seeing mine in use. I use it for pot roasts, fried chicken, chili. And it's the perfect size to cook bacon for a lot of guests. I'm fastidious when it comes to having my kitchen equipment clean, and love that this skillet is immersible. The only negative is that you have to be very careful when lifting the lid, since it is easy for your hand to come in contact with the hot lid. Using a pot holder solves that problem. I have never experienced a plastic taste as some reviewers have mentioned. And I have no trouble boiling anything as another reviewer stated. The skillet is durable, flexible in handling many different types of meals, is easy to clean, and far surpasses any of the multitude of electric skillets I have owned in the past.

I purchased this Crock Pot for my wife for her birthday and we have been very unhappy.

At first I thought we should just wait until we got used to it before being too critical. We have been using it once or twice a week for over 4 months now and I still don't like it.

The lid does not fit well. When the lid is on the pot, there is a gap on both sides that allows steam to escape. Every recipe that we make requires much more liquid than it calls for since most of it evaporates. Even recipes from the Rival cook book require more liquid. Along with the escaping liquid is escaping flavor. Recipes that we have loved for years are much less appetizing than they were with our old pot.

Vegetables are not cooked properly. We cut our vegetables to a reasonable size as we did with our old pot, but even after 10 hours on low, they are not properly cooked.

In short, this pot produces half-cooked, dried out food. Buy at your own risk.

We will be replacing ours as soon as I can find a better one.

I love this crock pot. Loved the fact that it had two seperate crocks, one of which being divided. That was a nice surprise when I opened the box. I also love the fact that it comes with the travel bag. I have had no problems with mine. The glass lid is a bit heavy and cumbersome. But all in all I love it, and will order more if they are available to give as gifts!!

Amazon shipping is amazing. I received this item in 4 days from across the country. I was very impressed and happy with how fast I received it. Thanks so much Amazon.com!!

my crockpot and i have been all around the world. she has cooked many a feast and is still going strong. however, last time i had her out i broke the handle into pieces and i need to purchase a new one. i am having no luck; does anyone have any ideas? like i said i have moved around a lot (thank God for the travel bag) and i seem to have lost my booklet so i am rendered helpless for the time being. any leads would be greatly appreciated. enjoy your crockpots!!!!

I received this as a gift and have already burned my hands several times because the lid is glass and has no handles to remove the lid off the base. When you lift the lid the steam that escapes burns you. You have to use pot holders to remove the lid and they get in the food. The lid gets very hot.

I received this skillet with one of the 4 little rubber pegs missing. This makes the pan wobble when cooking. I emailed customer service asking for some of the little rubber things and I was willing to pay a nominal shipping service. I was told to just take it back that they couldn't send the rubber pegs. I said that I had purchased the skillet on line and had already trashed the boxes. No further response. The pan works well but it makes cooking in it difficult because it is uneven and wobbles.

On the same day I wrote to another company that I had purchased a bread maker from 5 years ago with the same problem. They said no problem and I received the little rubber pegs within a week, no charge. Shows the difference in 2 companies.

The Toastmaster 6431 does not have an Underwriters Lab label, which would make anyone hesitate before buying it. The Underwriters Lab endorsement (a "UL" logo) indicates that the electrical product is properly designed and constructed so that it is safe. We found the product online, where there was no info about the UL status of the product.
The first thing that broke was the temperature control. We fixed that by oiling the screw whose in-out motion controls the heat setting.
The more serious problems emerged when the fuse blew. We looked inside and discovered overheated wires with partially-melted insulation. This condition could cause both an electrical shock to the user and an electrical fire that could burn down a house.
Toastmaster makes another hot plate (model TTS1) which does have an Underwriters Lab endorsement. We bought one today, and we hope that it will work safely until after the end of our kitchen remodelling project.

I've loved my little hotplate for 3 months, but it died. Froze the temp control at the time of death. Up until then I was very happy except for trying to boil large pots... never got there, and on frozen stirfry it has a hard time coming back after you add the frozen veggies... but ALL of the reviews are accurate, the high ratings just haven't used it enough times for it to burn out.. looks like anywhere from 50 to 100 uses, depending on how often you turn it all the way up. Highly recommended for a temporary use while on vacation or broken stove... now to try to get some warranty help!

I purchesd Toastmaster 6431 Eclipse Single Burner last September. Out of the 400 days of ownership I used the Burner maybe 100 times. It worked well and I am most pleased with the appearence and the easy to use design, however it is now just lump of non working metal. It stoped working three days ago for no particular reason.

If there is any kind of adjustment that can be made I would purchase this unit again. If there is no finacial consideration I will shop around and seek another brand.

The benefits from owning this unit were, easy to clean, the hot
filiment is some sort of high tech plastic, and the warming area is large, simple heat control and easy to store.

Hey Amazon, what are you doing? Yesterday there were 2 reviews for this product and I submitted a third, which was very unfavorable. When I checked this page today, I found the notification that there were NO reviews for this product. Is this some kind of shell game that you are pulling? So much for Amazon's credibility!!

I've found that this skillet heats unevenly, therefore making it necessary to frequently stir things to assure uniform cooking. Moreover, there is virtually no "simmer". If a low temperature is set, the heat goes off and eventually comes on again briefly. Cooking items that require simmering requires close monitoring and regularly reseting the heat, a real irritant.

Needed to replace 6 month old, unattractive Black and Decker teflon skillet. Read Amazon reviews on 16" version of this skillet. Decided to get the 12" one. Skillet and probe arrived in perfect condition. 16" skillet would have been HUGE. It's a beautiful appliance, but I wish it were deeper for larger capacity and to help contain splattering. So far I've fried chicken and the next morning I did pancakes. Took time to season the skillet and carefully followed instructions for first time use. Found it easy to clean, cooks evenly, and if it were DEEPER, I'd rate it 5 stars. Rival, please make one.

But by the looks of the other reviews here, I guess I did better than most. It took mine 11 months to break. Worked great (slow to heat up, but that's okay), until yesterday when it started to smell and then smoke came pouring out. After reading other comments I can see it's not worth trying to get it fixed. Now I'll need to buy another hotplate, but it definitely won't be a Toastmaster. I will never buy a Toastmaster product again. For the $40 I paid, it should have lasted a lot longer than 11 months. Don't waste your money.

Bad quality, not so durable. Large burner died with 2 months of normal use. I put this product in the trasher.

I was very happy to discover this hotplate with fully enclosed burners. It makes cleaning easy. I have purchased 7 of these in the last 2 years for my rental apartments. Unfortunately, 3 of them have burned out recently. The inline fuse for the larger burner has burned out in each case. Not a replaceable part. Not sure if they are burning out in normal use or if the burners are left on without food in a pot/pan.

I loved it the minute I got it, but it has one fatal flaw. The numbers on the tempature dial all rubbed off. I called customer service and this is a common problem. In about 4 to 6 weeks I will get a new dial... what a hassle. I say get a different product and save yourself 4 to 6 weeks. Other than that I love it. :)

I like the frypan to cook with, like the glass top, the square design. It's easy to clean, and the tilt feature is nice. The quick release of the controller, while a good idea, is very flimsy and should be made of a stiffer material. We've returned it once because the numbers rubbed off the controller. Our store replaced it with a new one and we very carefully avoided the numbers on the dial until stirfrying some chicken. As soon as oil splattered on the dial numbers, they wiped right off with a paper towel. What good is an electric frypan when you don't know how hot it is? We're going to return it and replace it with something else.

I received this as a gift this Christmas after my old skillet needed to retire. I like the surface area, clear lid and easy clean-up. I'm not so hot on the temperature dial (doesn't have anything to hold onto and it would be impossible for someone without decent grip to adjust). I also was burned when I lifted the lid and hot water escaped through the top and flowed down.