The average household in the United States spends about 35 hours a year making toast and an estimated 75 million of those household members eat toast every day. Hence, the toaster is one of the most important small appliances in today’s kitchen. IEC 60335-2-9 Ed. 7.0 b:2019— Household And Similar Electrical Appliances – Safety – Part 2-9: Particular Requirements For Grills, Toasters And Similar Portable Cooking Appliances covers the safety of household portable cooking appliances, such as grills and toasters.
Advantages of Portable Cooking Appliances
Toaster ovens, microwaves, slow cookers, and hot plates are examples of cooking appliances. These appliances are excellent at slow cooking, baking, roasting, and reheating; they are great for whipping up appetizers, snacks, and full-sized family meals.
Cooking appliances are ideal for people who enjoy making meals from scratch but want to simplify the cooking process. Besides being time-saving, portable cooking appliances are small and can be stored in cabinets or placed on countertops when not in use. This also makes them more energy-efficient.
What Is IEC 60335-2-9?
IEC 60335-2-9:2019 deals with the safety of electric portable appliances for household and similar purposes that have a cooking function such as baking, roasting and grilling, their rated voltage being not more than 250 V. Examples of appliances that are within the scope of this standard are:
- Barbecues for indoor use
- Breadmakers
- Candy floss appliances;
- Contact grills (griddles);
- Cookers
- Food dehydrators
- Hotplates
- Induction wok hotplates
- Pop-corn makers
- Portable ovens
- Raclette grills
- Radiant grills
- Roasters
- Rotary grills
- Rotisseries
- Toasters
- Waffle irons
A History of Toasters
Before the development of the electric toaster, hand sliced bread was toasted on a long metal fork or in a metal frame held over a fire or on a gas stove. Simple utensils for toasting bread over open flames appeared in the early 19th century.
- 1905: the engineer Albert Marsh created a nickel and chromium composite, called Nichrome. Marsh’s invention was easily shaped into wires or strips and was low in electrical conductivity.
- 1906: the first U.S. patent application for an electric toaster was filed by George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater Company of Detroit, using Marsh’s wire.
- 1909: General Electric introduced their first electric toaster, using a competing alloy, and it consisted of a cage-like device with a single heating element. The D-12 model, invented by Frank Shailor, was considered to be the first commercially successful electric toaster. Since the majority of homes had limited access to electrical power, the electric toaster was used only in restaurants.
- 1913: the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the “toaster that turns toast,” a device that eliminated the need for the bread to be turned manually halfway through cooking.
- 1919: a Minnesota mechanic named Charles Strite created an easy-to-use toaster designed for restaurants.
- 1921: Charles Strite received his patent for the automatic pop-up toaster.
- 1926: A redesigned version of the Strite toaster was being by Waters-Genter of Minneapolis under the brand name Toastmaster. It was the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, set the heating element on a timer, and eject the toast when finished.
IEC 60335-2-9 Ed. 7.0 b:2019— Household And Similar Electrical Appliances – Safety – Part 2-9: Particular Requirements For Grills, Toasters And Similar Portable Cooking Appliances is available on the ANSI Webstore.