REASONS TO BUY
Decent bagels
REASONS TO AVOID
Relatively poor defrosting performance
Krups Breakfast Set Review
Great if you want an inexpensive slot model that can make decent bagels
Credit: Krups
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Our Verdict
The Breakfast Set is a solid performer at a reasonable price. In fact, it is the only reasonably-priced toaster we tested in our best toaster review that can make decent bagels. You'll still get much better bagels from a toaster oven, and even better bagels from the pricey Smeg 2-Slice. However, if you're looking for a more inexpensive slot toaster for making bagels, the Breakfast set is a decent choice to add to your appliance collection.
Editor's Note: This review, updated on January 26, 2022, now offers more details on which toaster we recommend and why.
Our Analysis and Test Results
Here we further detail how the Breakfast Set performed in each of our tests.
Performance Comparison
Bread Toasting Quality
The Breakfast Set made relatively good toast during our testing. It had some trouble toasting crust-adjacent areas but otherwise browned relatively evenly across the face and both sides of the toast. It lost a few points because we thought its medium shade settings were weak. It has great range, the highest setting produces very dark toast, and the lowest setting makes extremely light toast (so light that it's debatable whether it qualified as toast or not). However, engaging the middle setting, with the shade knob straight vertical, did not produce a piece of toast between those two extremes. It was noticeably darker than toast made on the lightest setting, enough so that its status as the toast was unquestionable, but it was still very, very light. This even toasting combined with weakness at some settings earned the Breakfast Set a slightly above-average score for bread toasting test.
The Breakfast Set toasted bread well and evenly in our testing. However, its light and medium settings are very light, and its dark settings are very dark. This takes a bit of getting used to.
Credit: Steven Tata
Ease of Use
The Breakfast Set features pleasant controls and a shade knob that clicks into each setting for easy repeatability. The mode buttons must be pushed after the cycle has begun. We found this somewhat counterintuitive but easy to get used to. The buttons light up to indicate that they have been pressed, eliminating any guesswork on that front. The crumb tray is easy to remove and slides out from the front for easy access. The Breakfast Set's foremost ease of use issue is its seemingly non-linear shade setting. As we mentioned in the bread toasting section, the lowest setting makes exceptionally light toast, the medium setting makes very light toast, and the highest setting makes very dark toast. This means that toast made on the 3 setting is only slightly darker than toast made on the 2 setting, but toast made on the 6 setting is much darker than toast made on the 5 setting. The Breakfast set is consistent between cycles, so once you find your ideal setting, it is easy to get your ideal toast. However, these odd jumps in the darkness between each setting make it difficult to initially find your preferred setting.
The Breakfast Set's controls clearly light up to indicate which mode has been selected.
Credit: Katherine Elliott
We thought the Breakfast Set's user interface was more pleasant than most, but it's hard to initially decipher shade settings lost it a lot of points.
Bagel Toasting Quality
This metric is where the Breakfast Set shined in our testing. Well, maybe shined is a strong word. It scored well ahead of the low score (excluding the model that couldn't fit bagels in its slots), but it still falls short of the elite Smeg 2-Slice. It produced some of the more even bagel toastings we observed, with only some small white spots towards the edge, and its bagel function left the backside untoasted but warm. These bagels looked good, and they tasted pretty good, but they just lacked some je ne sais quoi when compared to bagels that came out of a toaster oven or the top-scoring Smeg. If you want to make bagels in a traditional slot model and don't want to spend $150 on the Smeg, the Breakfast Set will serve you reasonably well, but we'd still suggest you check out our toaster oven review.
The Krups was our favorite models to make bagels in. It was the only model we tested that could even approach the quality of bagels made in a toaster oven.
Credit: Steven Tata
Frozen Food/Defrosting Toasting Quality
The Breakfast Set received one of the lower scores in our defrosting test. This is mainly because our testing revealed that the defrost setting was weak. Even using the higher shade settings, frozen bread was transformed into thawed bread, but not something we would call toast. This can be remedied by running another cycle, but we don't think that should be necessary. It fared a bit better with frozen waffles. They came out of the defrost cycle toasted all the way through, but again even using higher shade settings were very light.
Even on the darker shade setting the defrost function produced lightly toasted frozen goods.
Credit: Steven Tata
Should You Buy the Breakfast Set?
The Breakfast Set offers solid performance at a reasonable price, though other models provide a better bang for the buck. It took home the best scores in our bagel toasting test, so if you want to make some good bagels and don't want to shell out the extra money for a toaster oven, the Breakfast Set might be a good choice.
Credit: Katherine Elliott
What Other Toaster Should You Consider?
The Amazon Basics KT-3680 is a less expensive toaster with the same score as the Krups Set for bagel toasting quality. It also scored higher for toasting quality, making it arguably the better choice between the two unless you just like the look of the Krups. If your budget allows, the absolute best in the group is the Smeg 2-Slice.
—
Max Mutter and Steven Tata
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