Bon Appétit has an archive of brownie recipes that runs deep. We can help you bake soul-achingly adorable camouflage chocolate fudge brownies, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, we’re happy to point you toward nutty, tahini-swirled brownies.
But if you don’t have the time or energy to make brownies from scratch, there are tons of boxed mixes that can step in to save the day. Some people even prefer boxed to homemade. And we celebrate that! (Though we might suggest supercharging your boxed brownie mix to take your treats to the next level.)
We blind taste-tested six popular boxed brownie mixes to discover once and for all which has the chocolatiest flavor, the most balanced texture (landing between fudgy and cakey), and that papery thin crackly top we love to see.
Photograph by Victoria Jane, Food Styling by Mieko Takahashi
The Completely Confounding: Jiffy
The ingredients: sugar, bleached wheat flour, vegetable shortening, cocoa, contains less than 2% of: salt, tricalcium phosphate, flaxseed meal, natural and artificial flavors, corn starch, dextrose, monocalcium phosphate, baking soda, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, wheat starch. Flaxseed meal is a pretty unique ingredient that may have some bearing on the flavor. Jiffy asks for 2 Tbsp. oil, in addition to 1 Tbsp. water and 1 egg—significantly less add-ins than most other boxed mixes.
The verdict: The Jiffy brownie mix was, in a word, austere. Associate food editor Kendra Vaculin described it as “the saddest looking thing I’ve seen in my life,” though others were slightly more charitable (“not cute, but good!” senior cooking editor Emma Laperruque said). The box decreed it should be baked in a loaf pan (puzzling), and as it baked it pulled away from the sides, sadly curling in on itself like it was ashamed. The result was a thin, dense rectangle. It had a malty taste, almost akin to rye bread. And we’d rather eat rye bread.
