What a time to be alive. You can hop on Amazon, order a Duncan Hines Mega Brownie Mix — complete with a six-inch “pan” — for $3 or $5, have it delivered to your house, add water, stir, bake for 30 minutes and boom. Brownies.
They look amazing on the outside of the box. But are they going to taste as good as they look?
That’s where I come in, friend. I will test this for you. It’s a tough job. Someone has to do it. I volunteer as tribute.
Here’s what you actually need beyond the box: a spoon or spatula, ¼ cup of water, and some nonstick spray (or butter or oil) so your brownie fabulousness doesn’t weld itself to the pan.
he directions say to pour the mix and water into a bowl and stir. Because I cannot just follow directions like a normal person, I tried to shortcut it and stir everything directly in the “pan” it comes with.
Don’t do that.
It would have been faster to just dirty a real bowl. I could only stir so aggressively because I was genuinely concerned about keeping the container intact. Imagine your flimsiest takeout container. Now reduce its structural integrity by about 75%. That’s the “pan.” I’m not even sure what it’s made of. Cardboard? Hope? A prayer?
It is not a pan. It is a suggestion of a pan.
So yes, use a real bowl to mix. Then spray the container well (or butter/oil it up), pour in the batter, and bake for 30 minutes — which feels ambitious given how delicate this situation is.
I also slid the whole thing onto a small cookie sheet before putting it in the oven. Is that required? Maybe not. But I do not feel like scraping molten brownie batter off my oven floor today. We are not adding “deep clean oven” to this experiment.
Julia says
I've never seen this before but if I had, I would have purchased it! Thanks for the warning!