> heats up almost as fast as a toaster oven
OK now I am curious. How powerful is this drawer and how large? I just set my toaster oven to 450ºF and the thermostat clicked off in 18 seconds, at which point an infrared thermometer indicated the walls of the toaster were 355º. My full height oven would take at least 20 minutes to get there. I can see how cutting the volume in half would help but it feels like you'd need more insulation and/or more power to close that gap.
I don't know how powerful. It will fit a half sheet. The door is a little less than a foot high and the interior obviously is smaller. I wasn't being "I made timing measurements" exact by saying "almost as fast" - think "almost as fast for my purposes". It takes about five-ten minutes to preheat and my old toaster oven took minutes, not tens of seconds. I don't remember how many. It's just a big enough improvement over a full height oven that we use it a lot more, and don't bother with a toaster oven.
You also can toast just about anything in it under the broiler.
Sounds useful. I agree a few minutes is not bad at all. I had just been wondering if you have one of those models that uses a battery to dump energy into the oven.
I have a newer Bosch oven which comes with an optionally engable rapid heat function. It can usually reach 200C (400ish F) within 5ish minutes.
Note that kitchen infrared thermometer may lie to you with things like the temperature of stainless steel (see emissivity).
You need surface thermometer or pro infrared thermometer
Gee thanks for the pro tip. I used a Fluke.