When you're looking for a toaster, you want two things. First of all, you want it to be reliable and consistent in its toasting, no surprises, no breakdowns. Second, since toasters sit out on the counter all the time, you'd like it to look good. In our humble opinion, KitchenAid has a winner on both counts with its new all-metal toasters. We've carried KitchenAid toasters for years and we've learned that you can pretty much forget about them, which is the way it should be. You put the toast down and it comes up the way you want, time after time, no worries.

The latest KitchenAid toasters are all metal, stainless steel down the center, with metal side plates enameled in a color KitchenAid calls Countour Silver. They have wide slots, so you can toast everything from sandwich bread to bagels, including thick slices of homemade bread. And each slot has a centering mechanism, so no matter the width of the bread it toasts evenly. The bagel button shuts off the heating element on one side of each slot, so bagels get toasted on the cut side without burning on the crust side. A simple 5-position rotary knob controls the shading.

The digital model adds a bunch of things, including an LED display that shows you the shade setting and the progress of the toasting, and a push button that both lowers and raises (when you want to cancel toasting) the bread. No more levers. In addition, there are simple push-button controls that let you reheat toast without additional browning as well as defrost such things as frozen waffles or pastries before you toast them. Not only that, the rotary shade control has no fixed settings, so you can truly customize your toasting to your exact taste. The digital model also adds vents on each side to better control heat build up in the toasting chamber and better ensure consistent results.