DIY Brownie Mix for Holiday Gifts

{Fantastic Recipe for DIY Brownie Mix + Printable Label!}

I had an oh-crap moment this afternoon. It involved me forgetting that I was supposed to drop off bake sale goodies for Will’s preschool fundraiser. Oops.

Fortunately, the bake sale isn’t until Sunday. Unfortunately, Will’s last day of pre-school for the week was yesterday. Which means, not only did I need to whip up something on the fly, I also now have to make a special trip to drop them off tomorrow. Ugh.

I love food. I love to cook. Baking though? It’s just not my thing. Probably, because I’m not super-awesome at it. I burn cookies and over-mix batter. I just can’t help it. So, obviously, baking for a large group of people (as in this bake sale), is not my forte.

Some of you may think of this as cheating the system. I think it’s brilliant. But my new go-to for bake sales? DIY Bake Mixes. I just bypass the whole baking business by prepping the mix and slapping on a label with instructions. They sell for more than individually wrapped cookies, plus when they get burned in the pan, it’s no longer on me! Win – Win!

Last year I made cookies. This year, I happened to have a lot of cocoa powder on hand. I got a little over-zealous around Valentine’s Day when prepping hot cocoa mixes. So…. Brownie mix it is! This was hands-down the easiest thing I’ve ever made for a bake sale, and it’s also just a really darn good mix to have on hand; the brownies (when you don’t over mix or over bake them) are fabulous. They are also great if you mix in white chocolate chips and/or chopped nuts.

If you don’t have a bake sale coming up (lucky you!), these also make great little holiday gifts, teacher gifts, and hostess gifts. Instead of a baggie, put the mix in a mason jar with some ribbon. Voila!

You can get the recipe from Crazy for Crust here. I love the idea of making it in bulk and keeping it on hand too. Never know when a chocolate craving will strike!

I made a quadruple batch, which gave me 7 mixes for the 9×9 pan size. If you end up making these as gifts, copy and save this image and print them off on labels!