Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

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.

We received our first West Bend egg cooker for a wedding shower gift 16 years ago. It was still working, but the nonstick coating had long ago worn off, and a piece of the plastic handle had broken off. My husband didn’t know what the soft-boiled piercer was, so he clipped it off with pliers because he thought it was dangerous.
Anyway, I thought it was time for a new one, and I looked on Amazon to see what was new and exciting in egg cookers. After looking at them all and reading the reviews, I decided to buy the West Bend 86628. It seemed to be the most like our old one with a few new perks.
So far, I like it just fine. You have to read the manual carefully, though, because I was using the soft-boiled water levels for poached (even though it didn’t make sense), then I read the manual to find out that there is a specific recommendation. My poached eggs were coming out too hard before I figured out the correct amount of water. I’ve used it to cook 1-6 hard boiled eggs, and it has been perfect. I don’t know what the other review means about the wells not being deep enough – my large eggs fit perfectly.
It is easy to clean, and unlike the older version, the nonstick coating seems better already. The older one had the egg stick on almost from the first use, and we had to use a scrubber or steal wool to get it off. This one cleans up without a problem.
It is true that getting the eggs out of the poacher is, well, a challenge. I’m sure it’s the same with one designed for the microwave or a pot on the stove. We use a small rubber spatula to help "slide" the egg out, but they are hot! You can’t wear a mitt because the handle is too small to grasp with a bulky mitt.
All in all, I think anyone would be happy with this unit for the price, and it would make a nice wedding shower gift 🙂 (even if the bride to be laughs at first – like I did!)