cheap, cooks evenly, easy to clean, looks good with unique design
Disadvantages:
no timer or thermostat
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
During her pregnancy my wife had the strangest of cravings, and could not eat enough cheese on toast. This developed into a love of cheese and tomato, cheese and onion and cheese and ham toasted sandwiches, a love which didn’t seem to stop after the birth of my baby. I ended up buying a new sandwich toaster for £19.99 after our previous model simply stopped working – I’m wasn’t entirely surprised after the amount of use and abuse it suffered over a 7 month period.
I opted for the Kenwood SM435 because it was reasonably priced and looked the business so would fit in quite nicely with our toaster, kettle and bread pot. Unlike most other toasted sandwich makers, instead of being quite flat to the work surface it looks a bit futuristic (I have attached a picture below to save trying to describe the shape which escapes me at this moment in time). I’m sure you’ll agree, it looks a bit different and with the silver metallic finish looks like it should cost a bit more than 20 quid.
The SM435 has fixed hinges so opening and closing it quite straightforward, there is no trying to reposition the top section to align it with the base and the handle is insulated so it doesn’t get remotely hotter once it has been in operation for a while.
There are two separate plates which both warm individually and it can make 2 sandwiches at once. More than adequate for our needs as I personally don’t eat that many toasted sandwiches if I can avoid them! Loading it up is simple, a little bit of butter is smeared on the cold plates or alternatively you can butter the side of the bread which touches the plate. I prefer to smear the cold plates as less butter is involved and is therefore a bit healthier. The bread and filling is placed onto the plate, the lid closed and the power switched on. That is all that is required, couldn’t be easier. As soon as the power is switched on the plates heat up fast, and I mean fast.
Sadly there is no timer or thermostat gauge to control the cooking time or temperature so figuring out when a sandwich is cooked is something of a hit or miss affair which knocks a few points off my overall rating for this product. Whilst I have perfected the art of making sandwiches, it took a fair few tries to master when something was cooked enough, but now that I know it takes roughly 5 minutes for it to make the perfect toasted sandwich I can time it.
In summary, I am pleased with the SM435 but feel it has lots of room for improvement to make it the best out there. The toasted sandwiches it produces taste lovely and cooked evenly, it is easy to clean as the plates come out (once cool) and it wasn’t the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought. I’d recommend it as your kind of entry level toasted sandwich maker but someone looking to be a bit more adventurous would probably want to steer clear and go for a model with a thermostat.
