Hamilton Beach Dual Breakfast Sandwich Maker with Timer, Silver (25490A)

I’m so excited about this egg sandwich maker. I am a senior who has to cook for two, and there is little I hate doing more than cooking. I suppose I could be good at it if I enjoyed it, but I heavily depend on my Ninja Foodi to throw things together for dinner. My partner, who doesn’t want to be bothered with anything, microwaves his lunches, and it’s your typical over-priced, over-processed stuff that creates a ton of plastic trash. Also, I just don’t like the way food cooks in a microwave so I avoid it myself.So I watched YouTube videos of people using this little egg sandwich maker and bought a Kindle book with recipes. So much advice from so many people! All say “It takes trial and error to find out what you like.” So I thought I’d just ruin something to take this tidy little machine on a maiden voyage. I brushed a thin layer of olive oil on the rings and griddle parts before I cooked my first sandwich. We haven’t bought muffins or bagels yet, but I did buy a set of stainless steel cookie cutters that has a 4” ring in the set so I can cut bread or tortilla or other circles. But when the cooker came, I was too excited even to fool with that. I cut a piece of that wide rye bread with the rounded edges in half to make one sandwich, fully expecting leakage because the bread didn’t extend to the edges of the rings. Put in the bread half, a slice of ham, a slice of cheese; closed down the top ring and cracked in an egg, using an edge of the shell to break the yolk. (I am confused why Hamilton Beach’s instructions say to prick the yolk with a fork, but then says not to use metal utensils because they’ll damage the non-stick coating.) Following advice from others, I didn’t put the top piece of bread on the raw egg until the last minute or so—they say it keeps the bread from having egg soaked into it—but that was probably unnecessary and prevented the top piece of bread from being as toasty as the bottom one.Initial impression: Easy. Tasty. This thing is forgiving as long as you remember to use oven mitts and give your cooked sandwich time to cool down some—especially if you cook it a little too long, as I did. Also, next time I make TWO of these, I’m going to scramble one egg and mix in a few veggies fritata-like, divide it between the two top sandwich rings, then put the cheese on top before putting on the bread instead of putting it in the bottom ring. Or maybe put half a cheese slice on the bottom and half on top. The book I bought with egg sandwich maker recipes does the cheese on top of the egg, and I think that’s a good plan to keep egg out of the bread while ensuring the top and bottom pieces cook evenly.People are nothing but creative with this egg sandwich maker. Just search for Hamilton Beach egg maker on YouTube. My mother used to make a marvelous enchilada casserole she got out of some 1950s magazine: four lightly turned-in-oil corn tortillas in a layer, a layer of chopped onion, a layer of sharp grated cheddar cheese; repeat for two more layers; then top it all off with a can of Hormel or Old El Paso chili without beans and more cheese. I’m going to try adapting that recipe to this egg cooker to make little dinner enchiladas for the two of us. The worst that will happen is that it will make a mess and it won’t cook quite right, but I’m game to experiment. Now I just have to try to wean Robert off his Jimmy Deans, which always seem to be sold out…and he ought to be able to manage it with this cooker.UPDATE: I use this almost every day. Street taco sized tortillas work great in it, the corn ones less well than the flour. The La Banderita flour tortillas curl up the sides a bit and cook to a satisfying crunchiness with sides that help keep the ingredients from sliding around. I make two with real bacon bits and cheese and an egg on top of each, then flip one over on top of the other for a perfect two-egg sandwich. I’m still experimenting with how best to time cooking the eggs so they’re not overdone and rubbery, but this little appliance is great!

Great idea, could use some improvements. What a wonderful idea!It never has made a perfect breakfast sandwich, although it does work.I made about 20 breakfast sandwhiches trying different methods. (Pretoasing bread, adding butter, cooking longer, loading bread first then after a minute add other items. etc)The novelty is good; but adding in time for cleanup and putting it away, there is little time saved. A quality breakfast sandwich and saving time was my focus in purchasing it.As far as quality in construction; I would say excellent. It is very easy to assemble and easy to use once you know the routine. I also never had a problem with leakage.I have a number of items (like this) in my kitchen that I do not use very often, but I still appreciate having them there; because of the novelty and the thought of the brilliant mind that created them.

It’s perfect except for the fact that it is weird to put the bread on top of the uncooked egg I didn’t do it for better results, but it is a great and practical machine I do recommend