In order to put the Eye Q through its paces, the first thing I did was buy a fresh loaf of whole wheat and then toasted a slice on each one of Breville’s seven color options. The result was a surprisingly smooth gradient from light to dark that would make the paint section of your local home improvement store proud. The lightest setting was so faint that it was more like merely crisping up the crumb of the bread without really changing its color, while the darkest slice was a deep brown that critically stopped short of being burnt — aside from the very edges of the crust. And in the middle, the Eye Q produced a perfect golden slice of toast that practically anyone would be happy to eat. In fact, the standard middle option was so on point that I just left it there for nearly all of my regular toast needs after that. (Note: In the picture above, the slice in the top left is an untoasted control, followed by seven progressively darker pieces of toast made by the Eye Q.)
If I’m really nitpicking, sometimes you can see the grill lines of the toaster where it holds each slice of bread in place. I also noticed that some pieces of bread looked a bit more splotchy while others featured a more uniform coloring. But those are almost entirely cosmetic differences because after smearing a touch of butter on, the taste of the toast was on point. There’s no need to guess if the bread should cook for 30 or 45 seconds or whatever, the Eye Q can figure things out on its own. Though if you do want a little extra crunch, you can always hit the “A bit more” button like tapping snooze on your alarm clock. You can even toast frozen bread straight out of the fridge without worrying about it coming out overdone.
Of course, that’s not all the Eye Q can do. If you press and hold down on the main button, you can trigger its sourdough mode. This gives the toaster a bit more freedom to propagate a maillard reaction into the big nooks and crannies you often get on a fancy leavened loaf. As a card-carrying millennial, naturally I used this function to make some avocado toast. And even though I had selected a massive French miche, the toaster produced a wonderfully crisp and perfectly colored slice that served as a perfect bed for Mexico’s most famous berry. That said, I did have to cut the bread in half lengthwise so that each slice would actually fit inside the toaster.
The Eye Q can also toast bagels, though as someone who lives in the northeast US and has plentiful access to fresh-baked options, I’m of the opinion that a good bagel doesn’t need to be toasted. And in its own way, I feel like Breville agrees. That’s because after I went out to my local shop and brought some home, I found that proper NYC-style bagels are often so thick they don’t really fit in the toaster, even after you slice them in half, without hacking it up or stuffing it into the slot in a way that just doesn’t feel right.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
It’s also important to note when toasting bagels, you’re supposed to face the cut sides outwards for the best results. Unfortunately, when I tried that with a lovely Russian rye pumpernickel, it ended up getting a bit burnt. In the Eye Q’s defense, I think that happened because the bagel was simply too big for the space and it ended up too close to the heating elements. So, if you’re the kind of person who buys Lender’s or whatever other sad excuse for a bagel that you find at your local grocery store, go ahead and toast it as the Eye Q can easily handle that too. But for anyone with access to a proper bagel, I think you should just skip the toaster entirely.
