Adventures in boxed baking

My mother’s side of the family is Mennonite. Well … a combination of Mennonites and Old Order German Baptists. Differences aside, this means I grew up in the kitchen cooking from scratch.

There I stood, like so many novice bakers, staring at a shelf of prefabricated cake mixes and icing, wondering how to choose.

I went with the classic. Betty Crocker brownies. There were 2 choices: Original (or so I’d assumed) or chocolate chunk. This was obviously a no brainer. Who doesn’t want chocolate chunks? The more the better.

As I later discovered the options were actually frosted or chocolate chunk. That’s right. No frosting in the choco chunk box folks. Choose wisely.

Trip #2 to the grocery store while I allow the brownies to cool. Now I’ve got a tub of frosting too. How else am I supposed to decorate it?

To be honest I felt a bit silly while I was making them. My mom is going to read this. She’s going to know I’ve made boxed brownies. However, I persevered in the name of science and discovery. It was fun. So easy. Just add some water (to which I added some vanilla because I’m not a monster), an egg (or two for a more cake like density) and some oil.

Oil you say. Well conviently enough I had made up some cannabis infused coconut oil.

These were the easiest edibles I’ve ever made. A little frosting and some chopped treats to finish it off and voila:

Sugar mountain.

Now as the evening draws near and the sun lowers on the horizon I’ll ease onto a giant pile of pillows and blankets on the couch and let the weight of the world drift away. It’s a tough life sampling recipes for this site, but someones got to do it.