West Bend TEM4500W Egg & Muffin Toaster, 4-Slice, Black (Discontinued

I rarely am tempted to buy single function kitchen appliances, due to limited counter space. I'd been thinking about purchasing one of these for awhile, and before a recent week-long motel stay I decided to buy one and take it with me on the trip. Once settled in the motel which had a small fridge, I picked up some eggs, whole wheat english muffins, sliced cheddar cheese and a package of sliced ham from the deli. With a little experimenting, I was enjoying a delicious, lower cal version of Egg McMuffins for breakfast every morning. Instead of using a whole egg, I substituted two egg whites in each little poaching pan and added a little extra steaming water to cook the thicker egg patty long enough to get it cooked all the way through. I saved money and calories by making these myself in the motel, and so easy to do! Granted, this wouldn't be easy to lug on a plane, but for a driving trip it's lightweight and easy to carry in and out of motel rooms. I'll keep using this at home now, for toasting bread as well as making egg sandwiches. The added bonus -- this also makes up to 8 perfectly done hard boiled eggs in just a few minutes with steam instead of boiling water, and for the three batches I've made have, the shells have come off very easily. This great gadget has earned a permanent spot on my kitchen counter! ************* Edit: February 18, 2013. *************** After three months of use, I'm even more in love with this thing than I was at first. 1. I've used this every day, sometimes twice a day, to make egg sandwiches or just to make toast. It performs flawlessly. 2. Shortly after I bought this in November, one of the egg poaching pans began losing its non-stick coating, coming off in blisters. A month later, the other one did the same thing. It wasn't a big deal, I just wiped it out with a scrubby pad and rinsed it off to remove any flakes of coating. After the second pan started doing the same thing, I called West Bend and explained the issue -- they sent me two free new pans without question, and I have had no trouble with the non stick coating on the new ones, so it must have been a bad batch. Be sure to use a good-quality non stick spray, butter, or oil in the pan before you drop in the eggs. 3. I see some of the reviews complain that the toast doesn't pop up high enough and they have to use a fork to fish it out. The levers on this toaster are designed so that you can actually lift the lever up about an inch from it's "popped up" position to raise smaller muffins or bread above the toaster for easy retrieval. 4. Other reviews have complained that the toaster doesn't toast the bread very well on the darkest setting. The twist knobs to control the darkness of the toast are backwards from what you would expect. To toast darker, turn the knob all the way to the left. Then it will work just fine. I like my english muffins extra toasted, so I just push the defrost button when I start the eggs and (unfrozen) muffins, which will run the toaster setting a little longer. 5. The reservoir that you pour the water into to steam the eggs can get a little grungy after a few uses. For easy cleanup, pour a little water into the reservoir and push the "egg" button to start steaming the water. Before it has evaporated, push the cancel button and let the water cool off. Then simply wipe it out with a sponge -- all the grunge loosens off when the water heats up -- no scrubbing necessary. 6. This thing makes the greatest hardboiled eggs ever. The shells peel right off and the yolks don't have that weird green shade that they do if you boil them on the stove too long. A tip to keep the occasional egg from cracking while you are using the hardboiled egg steamer function -- put all of the eggs with the pointed end up in the steamer rack. Once I figured that out, I haven't had a single one crack during the cooking process, and there's no need to use the little puncturing needle that's included to keep the shells from cracking. I like this toaster so much that I bought a second one as a backup in case this one ever stops working. If you like Egg McMuffins, you will love this toaster as much as I do.

Been looking at this for a while to make the kids a quick hot meal before school. I hesitated at first because I thought the egg cups were plastic. It went on sale (49.99) here and I had to have it. To my pleasant surprise, the egg cups are metal. First time I used it I forgot the pam and the eggs stuck like crazy to the cups. A good cleaning (sponge only) and next time shot them with Pam and eggs just fell out. This thing is great. Wide slots will hold anything including hamburger buns (yay!) and will toast anything very evenly. I had to use it a few times to get the right steamed egg I wanted and the measuring cup is right on as far as how much water to add to the tray (2 tablespoons for medium egg cooked all through). Clean up is pretty easy. The stainless tray that holds the water started to get some buildup on it from our hard water and I just poured a little vinegar on it and let it soak for a bit and it wiped right away. Only problems I see is today I tried to cook just eggs and no toast and the eggs came out way under cooked. I will leave in the tray for another couple minutes next time to make sure they are cooked when I don't use the toaster. The metal egg cups handles are a little off and will cause the lid to not sit right. I just took a good look at them and gave them a little more bend and it seems ok now. We have tried the pre-cooked Bob Evans sausage in it and it was great with the egg. Ham is great also and we tried pre-cooked bacon but it came out pretty soggy due to the steam. I even tried some good deli turkey slices in the tray with toast and I put the spicy white cheese on it (from kroger deli it's awesome) after it steamed and it was awesome and quick. Again, we love it and if the steamer was all stainless with a glass lid, I would have gladly paid more for it. Just had it a few weeks and will check back in to leave longer term comments. *********** There are more than a few people on here complaining about the toast is too cool or just luke warm when the egg gets done and I found a simple fix for that. It takes the steamer about 5 minutes to cook the egg and it will stop toasting a few minutes before that but it will keep the toast down to keep it warm until the egg gets done. I found out like others that the toast is not warm enough to my liking and kind of dry by the time the egg is done. I simply put a plate over the toaster slots when the toast light goes out (I use a paper plate as I don't see anything that would cause the paper to ignite as the toaster has a shield over the actual elements inside the slots and the toaster has turned off anyway) and the toast is PERFECT hot when the eggs get done. UPDATE 2 MONTHS LATER 11/7/2013 ********************* Purchased one for my Mom (single and not the double unit) and got another one (large one)for my sister. My sister called me about 2 weeks after getting hers and told me that one side of the toaster was not toasting so we returned it. The one that I have (had for 2 months now and used it quite a bit) has started to act up a bit. One side of the toaster has an issue when you try to pull the toast handle down. It will buzz very loudly and immediately pop back up like it is shorting out. After trying repeatedly to get it to toast on that side, I wiggled the knob just a bit and now it works but not without a loud buzzing noise. When cooking eggs, there is an issue with it leaking water from the lid. This is from the lid and under tray not being completely straight and it allows steam/water to escape. One of the egg trays has blistered a bit. These are metal trays and have some sort of paint like coating on them. I called west bend and they sent me a whole new toaster. A HUMAN answered the phone right away when I called and I was shocked at their SUPER customer service. In less than 5 minutes they had a new one on its way and it showed up Fed Ex THE NEXT DAY. Wow, awesome service. I haven't used the new one yet but will keep you posted. Wow on the customer service though.

This toaster does it all. Toasts bread and bagels to perfection. Makes my eggs just the way I likee them and all very easily. Right from the very first time I tried this my egg came out perfect. The was no gues work involved and this product beat my expectations in every way. I use vegetable spray on the egg pand as directed and I have never had an egg stick. The unit is very easy to clean and the crumb trays are an added bonus. Im now addicted to egg mcmuffins and I can honestly say they taste alot betetr then mcdonalds. I usually cook some sausage rounds or bacon, even pre-ccoked bacon and add it to my egg mcmuffin. My wife is a poached egg lover nd likes her eggs runny and soft and this unit cooks the eggs to order. I would recommend this product to anyone and since I have purchased mine three of my relatives have also purchased these units and are all completely happy with them. Great product !!

I was doing research trying to find a new toaster, because my recent purchase of a TFAL toaster left me wanting (I found it dried out the bread and didn't make bread inasmuch as it made croutons, yuck). I stumbled upon this toaster, mostly because I was looking for a faster one (faster usually means better toast), and saw the extra egg attachment and was ambivalent about whether I wanted a toaster with this extra stuff attached. Then I read the reviews: one glowing review after another. I couldn't find a similarly rated toaster with speed and function, so I purchased this item, egg cooker and all. All I can say is: Why don't all toasters come with this function?! I am happily munching on my very own egg mcmuffin, that was remarkably cooked in about four minutes, along with the english muffin! Clean up is very easy with many removable parts (I cleaned up my mess in under a minute including a full wash in the sink), and the toast itself is fabulous -- toasted quickly, without drying out the bread. If you are reading these reviews, and were like me and thought, "but I don't need that egg contraption on the side," ignore the egg contraption. The toaster itself is fantastic. And when you discover how to use the egg contraption, you'll wonder why you ever made breakfast any other way.

The egg poacher is really nice to have as we do not like fried eggs. We have done hard boiled eggs a couple times and no issues. The toaster itself is inconsistent, not just from side to side, but you do not always get the same consistency from two toasts on the same side. It is just my wife and I, so one side it set to the way she likes her toast and the other side the way I like toast. We have to watch the toast because it never comes out the same twice in a row.

So dissatisfied with this top rated toaster, after maybe two years it’s garbage what an exspensive waste of money, ended up buying a smeg 4 slice toaster. I’m so sick of paying top dollar for a product that promises to be in the best rated. Which is what I did reaserched it all before the purchase very unhappy in Canada you can’t make toast anymore because the lever won’t stay down. It is hit and miss and if your lucky and it does stay down it pops back up, then you fight for it to stay down again and if it does your toast is burnt. 😩

I wanted to give it 5 stars but I took one away because the egg/toast combo button doesn't toast the bread, it just heats it. That said, you can simply run the toast separately, the eggs take about 4 minutes and so does toasting so don't let this get you down. Also the toaster draws 8 watts of power when plugged in, this is quite a lot of power IMO, I just replaced a fairly high end Cuisinart which was only drawing about 1 watt. See the attached picture as I plugged it into my watt meter. I've had the toaster now for about a week and have put it through its paces. The toast takes about 4 minutes to get a medium brown. The poached eggs take about 4 minutes as well. It will do bagels and has some smart little half bagels embossed above where you insert them, so you can tell which side gets toasted (hint: the bagel halves face away from each other...seems a bit odd they don't face each other, but its really not a problem). It has some sort of hot panels inside of it rather than the typical hot "wires" I'm used to seeing in most toasters. Doesn't take away from anything, the toast comes our perfectly once you find the darkness setting of your preference. This toaster can be touched on the black area while you toast and there's no risk of burning yourself - this is a big plus in my books, I don't think I've ever owned a toaster than you can touch once its been on for a minute or so. The crumb trays are pretty straight forward, they have a coating of some sort on them but I did have to brush the crumbs with my hand to get them off. I admit, I bought this toaster because I thought the egg muffin thing was amazing and it is. I put some roasted garlic and herb seasoning on them and you can easily put a slice of cheddar in the poaching pans to have it all cook right into the egg. Sooo good! Clean up is not difficult...it takes maybe 1-2 minutes, if you did this on your stove with a pot it would take much longer though, so thats where this egg/toaster combo wins out.