Pillsbury Is Releasing Place & Bake Brownies You Can Make Like Cookies

You know those cookies that you just break apart into little bricks and put on a cooking sheet to bake? Well, brownies that are just as easy to make exist, too. And, apparently, Pillsbury is about to release Place and Bake Brownies in three different flavors for anyone who wants to eat a fresh baked dessert without actually doing the mixing and measuring part.

The news was shared by the Candy Hunting Instagram account, which posts about all sorts of new snacks and treats. According to Candy Hunting, the new Place and Bake Brownies "will be out very soon" and will come in three varieties: Chocolate Fudge, Marshmallow, and Peanut Butter Cup. The account notes that baking the brownies requires a muffin pan and muffin liners, probably because if you just put them on a flat cookie sheet, they'd just become one big, overflowing brownie lump. But putting them in the sort of dish you'd regularly bake brownies in would probably work, right? You'd just have to cut them up? (Don't take my word for it! I will not be held responsible for any brownie disasters.)

While Candy Hunting says the brownies are new, it's unclear why only one of the flavors, Marshmallow, is listed as "New" on its packaging in Candy Hunting's picture and in the photo on the Pillsbury website. It does seem that all of the varieties are new, since there's no readily available evidence of their previous existence online. Also, the listings on the Pillsbury site seem to be recent, as there are no reviews for any of the flavors.

Aside from that very small mystery, if you'd like to actually buy the Place and Bake Brownies, Pillsbury has a "Buy Now" button on each of the brownie flavors' pages that will link out to stores that have the items when they're available. That, or you can just keep checking at your local grocery store.

While these particular Place and Bake Brownies are (seemingly) new — one of Candy Hunting's commenters even said they were filling "a hole in the refrigerated dough market I didn’t realize hadn’t been filled!" — there have been many other similarly easy-to-bake sweets in the past. Pillsbury has a huge Ready to Bake line of cookies, including Chocolate Chip, White Chunk Macadamia Nut, Reese's Peanut Butter, and limited edition ones like Salted Caramel Apple and Hot Cocoa.

Nestlé Toll House also has break and bake treats, including a wide range of cookies, and, at some point, brownies. While they're not listed as a product on the Toll House site now, the brand used to have Mini Brownie Bites and holiday versions of the same thing for Halloween and Christmas. Toll House also apparently had a version of pre-made, unbaked brownies where you just plopped the whole thing into a pan, as shown in a 2005 post from the blog Review the World.

As you can see, the landscape of ready-to-be-baked goods is a vast one and it's still expanding. If you like "baking", but don't really like baking, there are plenty of options just for you.