I didn’t see this mix during Halloween but I stumbled across it on clearance post-Halloween so we’re going to give it a try because brownies have no seasonal restrictions. As I took this brownie mix home I kept thinking to myself I swear I have tried a brownie with marshmallow swirl before. I know we did a s’mores mix but that wasn’t the one I was remembering. I went back through and I found that Pillsbury’s Funfetti did a fudge brownie mix with a marshmallow swirl for Christmas last year that was elf on the shelf branded. This is the exact same product with different seasonal packaging. I’m disappointed that I fell for it again and bought it thinking it was a new product. Apparently this type of marketing works really well on me. Also unfortunately I rated those 3/5 stars so I have low expectations for these brownies. This is very likely due to the fact that I don’t think brownies deserve mix-ins, I think they are better off plain and left alone.
To make this batter you need eggs, oil, and water. Mix it all together and you get a brownie batter ready to pour in your pan. They do provide three different sizes of pan options, the smallest being an 8×8 pan that they referred to as the “thickest” option. This is the typical pan that I use so I will be using it again. However, they do also give instructions for a 9×9 and a 9×13 pan if you would prefer a thinner brownie. Once the batter was in the pan, I took the provided marshmallow swirl and created a spiral. For once I felt like they had provided too much marshmallow, I had barely used any so I went back around and did a second swirl which made it a little uglier but used some more of the marshmallow and yet I still had leftover. Now to get the spiderweb effect, you take your knife and drag from the middle of the spiral to the outside repeatedly. It looked really cool in the pan but we’ll have to see how it looks once baked.
I put this pan into the oven at 350 degrees. The box calls for 45 to 50 minutes for this pan size and I have huge doubts. They provided a different bake time for each size of pan and since this pan gave the “thickest” brownie they gave the longest bake time but I would never expect an 8×8 of brownie batter to bake for 40+ minutes. Not surprisingly, at 32 minutes the toothpick came out clean. If I had baked this for 13 more minutes I would have dry sad brownies. This may be the worst bake time I have seen on a mix.
Once the brownies cooled a bit I cut them into my typical 16 pieces. As I was cutting with my spatula I found the brownies were sticking to it so badly and I finally was able to try the hack that most brownie mixes call for, using a plastic knife to cut the brownies. I had one handy and cut the rest of the pan with it and it was like night and day. I will never go back to using anything else. I’m going to buy plastic knives just for this. If you’re like me and constantly ignoring this advice, I recommend you finally give it a try.
While the finished pan had looked cool, the individual brownies didn’t look like they had webs or any design on them which was lame. They each just had bits or stripes of marshmallow visible. It really lost the spiderweb effect and is no longer an obvious seasonal dessert. But looks aren’t everything. The consistency of these brownies was amazing and I really enjoyed it. The marshmallow portion was still gummy and tasted artificial, it wasn’t doing it for me. Some brownies had less marshmallow and I found myself reaching for those. I feel like the addition of marshmallow worsened these brownies and I would personally buy a plain fudge brownie mix from Pillsbury Funfetti but not the marshmallow swirl mix again. Hopefully they don’t rebrand it again and disguise it so well that I forget and purchase it again.
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