- Poaches or hard- or soft-boils eggs at touch of a button
- Egg rack holds 7 eggs; nonstick poaching pan holds 4 eggs
- Includes measuring cup with egg piercing pin
- Heat-resistant base; clear cover
- 1-Year warranty
The 86628 works just fine BUT I bought it based on West Bend's advertized wattage rating of 600W--thinking more is better. In actuality the unit is only rated at 350W. West Bend claims they're changing the misinformation on their site today.
My previous Egg Cooker was an Oster and it was OK.
I prefer my new 86628 because: It's all plastic so the egg holder won't discolor as did the Oster. The water measuring cup allows exact measures not like some others where you add water to the base. The egg holder allows you to remove all the eggs at once and imerse in cooling water so you don't have to handle each egg separately. The 'done' signal is LOUD. I like the positive Off/On switch. Others shut off the unit when cooking is finished. In my opinion that kind of temperature sensitive switching is a weakness. Which is what happened to my Oster. Although the water measuring instructions don't make sence to me, ie: more eggs need less water, I followed the instructions for soft boiling 4 and the eggs were perfect. And AMAZON.com is an excellent way to buy merchandise.
I love poached eggs, and the eggs that you get from the West Bend Cooker are very tasty. However, getting them from this cooker is a exercise in trial-and-error at best.
Starting from the outside, the clear plastic dome lid has the advantage of letting you see your eggs as they cook (or often as not, don't cook...). That is the ONLY advantage it has. The handle "bumps" on each side fit smoothly into the base of the cooker, meaning that nothing on the dome projects out from it.This means that although they are handle-shaped, you can't actually grab on to them. You can pick up the dome lid by simply palming it (if your hands are big enough) but if you've just poached a tray of eggs under it, you then get a burned hand.
Moving on to the poaching tray, it is designed to hold four very TINY eggs. Anything larger than a "medium" egg will overflow the tray and then accumulate in the water reservoir below, which then trips the power switch and the cooker shuts off, leaving you with egg-drop soup in the water reservoir, and uncooked eggs in the poaching tray.
Moving down from the poaching tray, the base tray works fine for making boiled eggs. The accompanying measuring cup also is accurately marked and if you can get around the problems with the lid, and content yourself with poaching only small eggs, you'll enjoy the eggs you get from this cooker.
