I love me Breville smart oven. Breville’s oven has been at the top of our rankings since I started testing the toaster for a living. At the top end of the Australian equipment range, the flagship focus (8/10, wired recommendation) and the nearly equivalent smart oven air fryer Pro will make you forget that you even have a full-size oven.
This sounds like an exaggeration, but it is not. Breville’s top countertop oven is more precise in temperature and preheat faster, don’t bake the whole house when you just want to bake some potatoes and do better. What’s more, Breville’s acquisition of the Chefsteps brand, as well as partnerships with other recipe manufacturers, refers to the mobile app that provides a large number of tested recipes and techniques for your countertop cookware.
Photo: Breville
However, the air-frying capability of each Breville device has never been as impressive as many of the other premium qualities of the oven. They won’t be as crispy as my top-style Instant Pot Fries, or even as crispy as the small cuisinart toa-70 oven, which seems to make everything slightly crispy. I’ve always wondered if the interior of each Breville oven is larger, making the air good enough, just like in a small basket, it’s basically a single-use capture ice cream for hot air. I think if Breville made a smaller oven air fryer, the basket would have a better cycle.
Enter the Smart Oven Air Fryer Compact, the smallest, lowest-cost air fryer model in Breville. The company began rolling the device gently in early March. The 1,800-watt compact is a great oven overall with many very smart features, especially at the preset front. I don’t usually like the preset buttons for individual dishes, but I actually like them here. The compact size is also versatile, with three (or real six racks) positions, an air frying basket, baking tray as double the grease trap and a broiler rack.
But when it comes to crispy fries and wings, size is not the answer.
Smart oven, smart functions
First of all, this is a great thing for the Smart Oven Air Fryer Compact. On its equipment line, Breville made art with elegant hand-held, a small amount of automation and convenience, providing real practicality for home cooks. This compact air oven is no different.
Fryer presets are three things American audiences usually want in air-frying oven presets: wings, fries, bacon. These are food for Rust Belt and Midwest, Plains State and football fans. This is a country where the air fryers are blown up. The correct shelf position for each preset is useful inside the oven, but especially customization for each dish.
Photo: Matthew Korfhage
