Abstract: A toaster includes a cabinet defining a toasting cavity for receiving a bread product and one or more heating elements positioned within the cabinet for selectively heating the toasting cavity. A camera assembly is mounted in view of the toasting cavity and a controller is configured to obtain a desired toast level, initiate a toasting cycle by energizing the one or more heating elements, obtain one or more images of the bread product within the toasting cavity using the camera assembly, analyze the one or more images using a machine learning image recognition process to determine an actual toast level of the bread product, and stop the toasting cycle when the actual toast level has reached the desired toast level.