You’ve heard me say it before but I’ll say it again, brownies should be left alone and plain. However, I can’t resist these mixes with the mix-ins. I always hold out hope that one of these mixes will convince me otherwise. So I bought this mix with a heart full of optimism. This is Pillsbury’s Funfetti line with a line for Elf on the Shelf and it is a marshmallow swirl fudge brownie mix.
While the packaging for this mix is festive and screams “holiday dessert” the actual dessert is a marshmallow brownie so I held onto this mix for awhile and we’re testing it out after the holiday season. However I have not seen it on shelves since the middle of December so it is very likely you cannot get your hands on this mix.
I’m not sure I’ve ever tried a Pillsbury brownie mix, at least not on this blog and not in the the last few years so this is a new brand to check out. This mix is pretty standard, the recipe requires water, oil, and eggs. You mix this all together and put the batter into the pan. The batter was super tasty, the good kind of brownie batter where you want to eat it with a spoon instead of baking it. The packaging says to place the batter into a 9×13 pan and at the bottom of the instructions offers cook times for a 9×9 pan and a 8×8 pan depending on how thick you want it. My preference is always thicker and fudgier so I chose the 8×8 pan and the batter didn’t come up very high in the pan, maybe half an inch. It was so little I was shocked they would suggest a 9×13 I feel like that size pan would make brownie brittle with how thin it would be.
Once the batter is in the pan, you use the provided marshmallow mixture and pipe it out on top of the batter then swirl it around with a butter knife. It wasn’t a lot of marshmallow and looked like a reasonable amount once swirled in. Sometimes mix ins take away from the brownie so I’m hoping this being a small amount makes a good ratio for each brownie. The marshmallow really didn’t taste like anything, more like a vanilla flavor and a light almost cool whip texture.
The height of the batter had me concerned for the bake time. The listed bake time for the 8×8 pan was 45-50 minutes. I put it in the oven for 35 minutes to start, then 4 more minutes totaling 39 minutes and they were cooked. I am disappointed in Pillsbury for this inaccurate bake time but I expected it to be worse based on the height of the batter. 6 minutes is a long time to continue baking an already baked pan of brownies. This additional time would affect the consistency of your brownies so be sure to always keep an eye on your baked goods, you can’t trust most bake times.
With the pan of brownies out of the oven, I could see the marshmallow sank in and baked into the brownie, it was hardly visible now. I cut the pan into 16 pieces and found now that the marshmallow mixture had cooked and it had changed consistency. Previously, it was more like a goo and I expected it to be messy but after baking it became gelatinous like a marshmallow and meshed much better with the brownie. Because of this it didn’t stick to the spatula when cutting up the brownies and they cut which I greatly appreciated.
These brownies are pretty good but the marshmallow swirl was lacking. It really wasn’t enough and didn’t make much difference. The bites that had more marshmallow were pleasant but few and far between. This box mix needed about double the amount of the marshmallow mixture swirled in. Overall, Pillsbury made a good brownie, it’s a box mix fudgey brownie with a good chocolate flavor, and I didn’t hate the mix-in so I’ll count this as a win. However, I wouldn’t rebuy this mix when I could just buy a Pillsbury brownie mix and I’ll have to give that a try in the future. If you’re looking for a marshmallow swirl brownie, you can find a large variety of homemade recipes online and in this case, it is better to go homemade. Don’t waste your time hunting down this mix.
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