In the Mix - Betty Crocker Chocolate Brownie Mix

Name: Chocolate Brownie Mix

Company: Betty Crocker

Bought in: Tesco

The Betty Crocker website rates this a level 1 (of 4) difficulty.

Preparation: make sure you have the correct size tin and grease-proof paper and pre heat your oven!

Though I love tea every good cuppa deserves a lovely sweet to go with it, so when my brother (who is too lazy even to ask me to make him brownies, let alone make his own) brought me a Betty Crocker Brownie Mix, my new series ‘In The Mix’ was created!

My brother and I LOVE our cakes and sweets especially those with chocolate involved (and as the packet says, these brownies are ‘total chocolate heaven’) and though I love to bake he is a little lazy so these ‘make your own’ baking kits seem a lovely middle ground for us and something fun we can do together. I’d recommend these kits to anyone, from the hungry student, couples and parents to families looking for an easy weekend activity as they are relatively quick and very easy plus a little messy! Because I love to bake from scratch and have control over the whole recipe I was a little wary of these kits with most of the ingredients already measured out and bunged into one bag, (how can you tell what’s in there?!) but I put these worries aside for the love of brownies and we gave it a go.

Part 1) Measure out the remaining ingredients then mix it all together – though most of the ingredients come with the pack, you do have to add three more ingredients (the perishables they can’t put in the packet) to complete the recipe but don’t worry, they are everyday things that you will probably have in your kitchen (I did): a small amount of Oil and water and an egg. It is surprising that so little of all the ingredients serves 16! The instructions say that the mix will be lumpy, it will, but just keep going and you can wear those lumps down a little bit. Don’t worry about them too much it just makes the cake a little denser in those parts.

Part 2) Pour the mix into a lined tin – first you need to make sure the tin isn’t too big (like the first one I tried was) otherwise you will end up with wafer thin brownie crisps (which doesn’t actually sound that terrible, its just not what we’re going for). Tin hopping aside, my new tin was deep enough to create lovely thick chewy brownies so I reached for my grease-proof paper… only to discover I didn’t have any! I cant stress enough the importance of preparation when doing ANY baking (or cooking for that matter) ALWAYS make sure you read the recipe early enough before you bake (or cook) to be able to grab all the ingredients and any extras you will need before its too late! So, make sure the tin IS lined with grease proof paper (an easy but a vital step if you actually want to be able to get the brownies out of the tin!) and that the mix is level in the tin for perfect brownies! However with the mix already prepared I popped the mix in the tin and hoped for the best.

Part 3) Pop the mix in the oven and wait! – simple. The instructions say 20-25 mins, I took mine out at 20 mins and they were still they really do need that extra 5 minutes for the perfect squishy inside, crisp on top treats! The instructions also don’t mention the amazing smell that comes from the oven which is torture if you haven’t eaten since breakfast and its rather late!

And finally…

Part 4) Remove them from the oven, leave to cool (if you have the patience) and enjoy – as you can probably guess, we didn’t have the patience to cut them out of the tin let alone let them cool so we cut it out a slice at a time(with a little bit of difficulty owing to the lack of grease-proof paper and the brownie having a really strong hold on the bottom of the tin) and enjoyed it with a movie. However if you aren’t an animal like us I would suggest waiting for the tin to cool, cutting the brownie into squares, dusting with icing sugar and serving piled up on a plate. Despite losing the bottom of the brownies to the sticky tin they were amazing, sweet and soft, just perfect!

Notes: this is an easy recipe that goes from packet to plate in no time at all but do make sure you have everything you need before starting so you don’t have any mishaps like I did! The box says this kit serves 16 but the two of us finished it off in one sitting (it was really, really good!) Another piece of great news is that if you are in the US you can get this mix gluten free!