why my kitchen smells like a bakery at 7am, an investigation

My sister stayed over last weekend and stood in my kitchen at 7am with real suspicion on her face, asking why the apartment smelled like a bakery. There is no bakery. There is a tiny black box on my counter, a tablespoon of water, and a machine that turns four day old grocery store bread into something worth waking up early for.

That box is Balmuda The Toaster, and this is my confession about it.

the honest bit, with receipts

I paid full list price, $229, no sale, because Balmuda does not really do sales and I am not patient. This was a gift to myself after my first freelance invoice cleared and I have defended the purchase in the group chat ever since, mostly successfully:

A newer Pro version exists now, for around $380, with a broiler setting. I own the little one. We are fine.

what it actually does, a list

The whole trick is a spoonful of water. You pour water into a little groove near the window, the machine steams the outside of the bread while the inside crisps, and what comes out has a crackly crust with a soft middle instead of the dry jazz that slot toasters produce. The steam puffs out the front and for about four seconds my kitchen sounds like a small, polite train station.

It resurrects bread that should be gone. This is the feature that sold me. Grocery store loaf, day three, bordering on stale, goes in and comes out tasting warm and fresh in a way I do not fully understand. I have stopped buying as much bread as I used to, because half a loaf is no longer a punishment.

The modes are mostly honest. Sandwich bread, artisan bread, pizza, pastry. The pastry setting brought a croissant from Saturday back to life on Wednesday and I genuinely sat down when I bit into it. The artisan mode handles thick sourdough like it was designed for exactly that, because it was.

It is small on purpose. The footprint is tiny, two slices max, and it fits on my crowded counter next to the Marshall speaker like they coordinated. If you want a four slice morning or a bagel the size of a hubcap, this is not your machine. It is a toaster for a person who eats toast alone and likes it that way.

What it will not do, plainly. No bagel mode. No wide slots for monster bread. The rack position is fixed, so big items need coaxing. And if you forget the water, it still toasts, it just loses the whole personality that made you spend the money.

The cleaning is one small tray. The water tray slides out, gets rinsed, goes back. Once a week, sixty seconds. The crumb situation is standard toaster oven life. I have owned worse roommates.

The little details are where the money went. The window is wide, the light is warm while it works, and the end of a cycle comes with a soft chime instead of a pop up lever slamming. It is a calm object. I know it is a $229 toaster and I know how that sounds, and the chime still gets me.

tangent: steam is a whole kitchen philosophy

My mom's rice cooker has a steam function. My grandmother's bamboo steamer has been in the family longer than I have. There is a long line of kitchens in my family that treat steam as the thing that makes food taste loved, so when a Japanese company builds an entire toaster around a tablespoon of water, my reaction was less "gadget" and more "finally, someone said it out loud." The Balmuda does not feel new to me. It feels like a translation.

Anyway, moving on, before this becomes a piece about my mother's kitchen, which deserves better than a tangent.

the soft landing

I keep meaning to test the pizza mode on a proper slice from the good place on Fourth Street, and instead I keep making plain toast at 7am because it is that good, which is the least scientific endorsement possible. If bread is a big part of your mornings and your budget can absorb one absurd object, this little black box will pay you back in smells.

Measure the water. Listen for the chime. Be early on purpose.

• ava 🍞