Best boxed brownie mix

My sister makes awesome brownies from scratch, but I just can't resist the Ghirardelli 5-batch box from Costco. It is around 7 dollars and is "triple chocolate". It includes semi-sweet chips, milk chocolate chips and double chocolate chips(whatever that means). All you add is water, an egg, and some oil.

At first, I hated them because they didn't cook right(mushy) and were quite greasy. I solved this problem by lowering the oil from 1/3 cup to
1/4 cup.

This is an essential change from the box instructions in order to make the perfect chocolate chunk brownie. Unless, of course, you like your brownies greasy and mushy. To each his/her own!

The one's at Trader Joe's are quite good. Broussard, maybe? I don't think that's right, but someone else probably knows. And at less than $2.50/box a pretty good deal, I think.

I love those Ghiradelli brownies too. I make them often to take to work for functions. I took them in the spring to the All School Picnic. I left them in the pan I baked them in, which has a lid, and they ended up sitting in the sun all morning. Come lunchtime, they were warm and gooey like they had just come out of the oven. It's not worth the effort or ingredients to make them from scratch when the boxed is soo good.

Boxed brownies are silly. Here's the recipe I've been using since 6th grade. It's only one bowl, one pan.

2 oz unsweetend chocolate
1/3 C butter
Melt those together in a large glass bowl -- microwave on high for 30-sec intervals and stir until melted.

1C Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2tsp Baking Powder
1/2tsp Salt
1/2tsp Vanilla
2/3C Flour
Add to the butter/chocolate.

Add 1/2C each butterscotch chips, chocolate chips and/or chopped nuts (usually no more than two of those). Spread in an 8x8 or 7x11.5 pan, bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, depending on gooeyness level desired.

Couldn't be easier.

I had Williams Sonoma's brownies over the weekend and they were very good-very dark. I do believe they are very expensive - like $10.50 for a single box...

If you do not feel like making your own the blondie bar at the Corner Bakery are good.Butterscotch and coconut.

I agree with JoelF. Brownies from scratch are so easy there's no reason to use a boxed mix. There's an excellent recipe for brownies on the insert in the 9.7 oz. Scharffenberger semi-sweet chocolate bar. There are several other recipes as well--I made the recipe for chocolate pudding last night. It's delicious and much better than a boxed mix as well.

Cook's illustrated also rated the "triple chocolate" the best of the boxed brownies.

However they had a whole article devoted to "The best Chocolate brownie" I just received the issue the other day as part of some unsolicited "Free trial".

I agree that it's almost as easy to make them from scratch as from a mix. All they do is mix the dry ingredients for you.

After trying several recipes, Fox and Obel's makes by far the best brownies I have ever tried. It's super simple(butter,chocolate,eggs,flour,vanilla,sugar), and makes a decadent, very chocolatey, yet light and delicate brownie. I don't like the kind that are so fudgey they are pasty, but i really don't go for cakey ones either. F/O's have a cup of flour that is offset by 9 eggs. Somehow it just works perfectly.

note: if you undercook these they will be pasty-fudgy