I’m not gluten-free — but my favorite brownie mix is

There are a handful of things I bake once or twice a year, and then there are the recipes I make on repeat. My freezer is never without frozen balls of our Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie dough, for example, and at least once a month (or more often, if I’m being honest) someone in our house makes a batch of brownies. Recently, I baked our Small-Batch Brownies for a weeknight treat (instantly devoured); for a potluck, I toted a large pan of Peanut Butter Brownies (talk about a way to make friends). 

Photography by Rick Holbrook, food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova

But lately most of the brownie-making efforts in our house have been led by my 11-year-old son, who is dipping his toe into the world of baking the way I once did: with a mix. We are a gluten-eating household, but our favorite brownie mix is actually gluten-free. Here’s why.  

Brownie eaters are divided into two camps: Team Fudgy and Team Cakey. Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones, and typically don’t include any leavener. Because fudgy brownies contain very little flour relative to other ingredients (and because you’re not counting on the gluten that wheat flour provides to give the brownies structure), they’re not only well-suited to making gluten-free — they're actually better that way. (Of note: Both the Small-Batch Brownies and the Peanut Butter Brownies I mention above can be made gluten-free simply by swapping in our gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour in place of all-purpose.)  

Photography by Danielle Sykes, food styling by Liz Neily

Our Gluten-Free Fudge Brownie Mix is made with a blend of rice flour and tapioca starch. It contains a lot of high-quality cocoa powder, which contributes an impressive depth of flavor to the brownies, and unlike other box brownie mixes on the market, you’ll actually recognize the short list of other ingredients in the package (baking soda, baking powder, salt, and natural vanilla flavor). The result is the deeply chocolatey and pleasantly dense brownies we all love, with the added bonus that when we make a batch, my son can share them with his buddy with celiac who lives across the street. I’ve got more years on this planet than my son, so I’ve made a lot of different brownie mixes and I can confidently say that if you like a fudgy brownie, it’s the best one out there. (You don’t even have to take my word for it.)

My son now deftly dumps the powdery mix into a bowl, cracks in the eggs (mostly avoiding the inclusion of shell), adds melted butter (or oil), then stirs it together, somehow always managing to spill some on the floor, the counter, or his shirt, and sneaks the batter-covered spoon into his mouth before I can stop him. I asked him today for his brownie mix review, and here it is, from the mouths of babes: “I love the fudginess,” he enthuses, before turning serious. “But tell people that the optional chocolate chips in the recipe should not be optional.” I can’t argue; not only do the chips amp up the chocolatey-ness of the brownies, it also gives them a thin, crackly top, a feature that all brownie eaters, whether Team Fudgy or Team Cakey, whether baking from scratch or from a mix, love. 

Looking for your dream scratch brownie recipe? Read Brownie breakdown: What’s the best brownie recipe for you?