Oster 2-Pound Expressbake CKSTBRTW20 Review

Fresh tasty bread in under an hour?

Yes please.

For high quality bread at a bargain basement price, it’s hard to go wrong with the Oster 2-pound Expressbake bread machine CKSTBRTW20. No wonder it’s one of the world’s bestselling bread makers!

Sure, it may not have the bells and whistles of high end brands like Breville or Zojirushi, but for a reliable and cheap machine, the Oster 2lb bread maker is a cracking compromise.

This review will uncover all that’s good (and bad) about the machine, so you can decide whether it’s worth your money.

Oster 2 Pound Expressbake Breadmaker: In a Nutshell

• Weight: 8 lbs
• Dimensions: 13 x 13.8 x 14.1 inches
• Loaf capacity: Up to 2 lbs
• Settings: 12 bread settings and 3 crust settings
• Timer: 13 hour time delay option
• Stand-Out Feature: Expressbake setting bakes in less than an hour

Oster 2lb Bread Maker: Features

Here’s everything you need to know about this super popular bread maker.

Loaf Size

The Oster 2 pound Expressbake breadmaker can make 3 sizes of loaf: 1lb, 1.5lb or 2lb.

We find that it works at its best on the smaller sizes and quality (particularly the shape of the loaf) is more unreliable at the 2lb size. It’s great that there are a variety of sizes available though, and means you can easily cut down on any food waste if you’re just eating the bread as an individual or couple.

The non-stick bread pan is horizontal, but some buyers have found that finished loaves tend to turn out a little square shaped.

Bread in a Hurry

When you’re short on time, the Oster 2lb Bread Maker’s Expressbake setting is the ideal solution.

Expressbake can make a 2lb loaf of bread in just under an hour.

This is significantly faster than most other bread making machines which normally take 2-3 hours and a huge benefit of the Oster machine.

12 Bread Settings

Despite the fact that the Oster 2 pound Expressbake Breadmaker has less features than higher quality models from other brands, it still has a great selection of settings that should satisfy most, if not all, of your needs.

Here are the settings:

• Basic
• French
• Whole Wheat
• Sweet
• Ultra Fast (1.5lb)
• Ultra Fast (2lb)
• Quick
• European
• Dough
• Bagel Dough
• Jam
• Bake

Who doesn’t want to whip up a batch of jam in their bread maker?

There are also 3 different crust settings to give the outside of your bread the texture you prefer.

In addition there is an automatic setting that keeps bread warm for 60 minutes after the baking cycle ends.

Fruit and Nut Beeper

The helpful audible beeper feature of this unit tells you exactly the right moment to add fruit and nuts during the kneading part of the baking cycle.

Simply raise the lid when you hear the beeper and slowly add your ingredients to achieve even distribution throughout the dough.

Six-Minute Memory

Have you ever been unlucky enough to experience a power cut which has *totally* ruined your bread?

The six minute memory feature of the Oster CKSTBRTW20 aims to prevent this happening by remembering its place in the baking cycle. As long as your power comes back within 6 minutes there is no need to start all over again from scratch.

13 Hour Delay

Perfect for when you want to wake up to warm, freshly baked bread first thing in the morning.

The programmable 13 hour delay timer enables you to set your bread to start baking while you sleep.

Viewing Window

Want to check the progress of your bread while it’s baking?

The large viewing window in the top of the Oster 2-Pound Expressbake is designed to allow you to monitor your bread. In practise, we found the window gets a little foggy relatively early on in the baking process, which makes it a little hard to really glean what’s going on.

Oster 2-Pound Expressbake Review

The Positives

When it comes to good points, the popular Oster 2-Pound Expressbake Breadmaker has plenty — and this is reflected in the hordes of positive customer reviews it receives.

Low Price

Affordability is a huge plus here.

Although the machine is a little basic, the Oster 2lb bread maker performs very well for the price. We can’t give it the same glowing reviews as we would for a Breville or Zojirushi as it simply doesn’t have the same level of features, but there’s no doubt that it’s a terrific product for people on a tighter budget.

Easy to Use

This bread maker is supremely easy to use — so easy that even the ‘Can’t Cook Won’t Cook’ brigade will be happy!

It really is a case of set and forget.

All you need to do is unload your ingredients, choose your setting and the machine will do the rest. It will even beep at you to indicate the best time to add any mix-in ingredients!

The LCD display is intuitive and the control panel perfectly simple.

Hate kneading? No worries — the Oster will do it for you. As well as calculating the exact time for rising and baking it to perfection for you.

As amateur bakers, we love that we can make delicious bread at home, from scratch, without the energy and time needed to do traditionally in the oven. If you’re anything like us, you’ll also love that amazing Expressbake option…

Easy to Keep Clean

One of the best things about the Oster bread maker is that it’s super easy to clean after using.

There’s nothing worse than scrubbing at a bread pan to remove burnt crust off the bottom of it for hours.

Thankfully, the non-stick aluminium pan means that there’s no burnt crust there in the first place, as the whole loaf heats up and bakes evenly, and the clean-up job is nothing more than an easy wipe-down.

Small and Quiet

With 13 x 13.8 x 14.1 inch dimensions, the Oster 2 Pound Expressbake Breadmaker isn’t going to take up all the space on your counter. And weighing only 8lbs, it’s easy to pack away into a cupboard when you’re not using it.

Another benefit is that it works quietly. You might think that this isn’t important, but if you’re using the 13 hour delay timer for it to deliver fresh bread to you first thing in the morning, you’re going to be pleased that you can’t hear it laboring away in the early hours!

Other Things We Love:

• The ‘ultra fast’ settings
• The 13 hour delay timer
• It can make more than just bread — including jam, cakes, rolls and even pizzas!

The Negatives

Less Reliable for Big Loaves

The Oster 2-Pound Expressbake Bread Maker is well built and generally reliably delivers quality loaves; at least 1 and 1.5lb loaves.

However, as we mentioned earlier, we think the reliability falters a little when you’re baking 2lb loaves — we’ve had a couple of dodgy bottoms and less evenly baked loaves at this level.

Some people attribute this to the kneading blade, which isn’t able to knead as evenly with this larger volume of dough. Sometimes it can be tricky to remove the blade from the finished loaf, leaving an unsightly hole in the bottom.

This may be something to consider if you’re looking for a breadmaker that can make high quality family sized loaves.

No Gluten Free Setting

Eating gluten free bread is becoming more and more popular nowadays, but unfortunately there’s no automatic setting for this on the Oster 2-Pound Expressbake Bread Machine CKSTBRTW20.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t make gluten free loaves with it, however: some users report simply adding your gluten free flour and other ingredients to the machine and putting it through the wheat setting.

The Viewing Window

We’ve mentioned already how the viewing window fogs up, which stops you being able to see what’s going on throughout the baking process.

Unfortunately, the window has other negative associations aside from not being able to see the bread. A little heat is lost during the baking through the window, which ocassionally leads to an uneven color on the top of your baked bread.

We’d like Oster to simply remove the window in future iterations of this bread maker. It’s simply not worth it.

Other Things That Could Be Improved:

• The fruit and nut beeper is really loud
• It’s not particularly attractive

Overall Verdict on the Oster 2-Pound Expressbake Breadmaker

The Oster 2-pound Expressbake bread machine CKSTBRTW20 is an affordable introduction to the world of home baking.

Its simplicity makes it suitable for anyone to use, and the large capacity makes it a great choice for families. It might not be fancy but it does the job well, and for the price we think it’s difficult to find a better bread maker.

Oster 2 Pound Expressbake Breadmaker Tutorials

Thanks largely to its low price tag, most buyers love this bread maker — it truly seems like a much more expensive machine.

There are a huge number of reviews online, most of them very positive about the machine.

We’ve picked out a couple of video tutorials that might help you decide whether this is the bread maker for you.

Where to Buy the Oster 2lb Bread Maker

The Oster CKSTBRTW20 2-Pound Expressbake Breadmaker is widely available online, thanks to the fact that it’s so damn popular.

Here’s where you can find it hiding out:

• Oster
• Target
• Walmart

And, of course, it’s available on Amazon.

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And there you go — our Oster 2-Pound Expressbake review!

Have you bought one yet?