Gluten-Free Halloween Mummy Brownies

Most Halloween baking is fiddly. This is not.

One pan of brownies from Pamela's Chocolate Brownie Mix, cut into nine squares, drizzled with white chocolate, and given a pair of candy eyes. That is the whole decoration.

It takes about ten minutes once the brownies have cooled, and it is the kind of thing a seven-year-old can do properly. The uneven drizzle is what makes them look like bandages, so there is nothing to get wrong.

Mummy decoration adapted from Bex at Gluten Free Cuppa Tea.

So good, no one will guess they are gluten-free, the way Pamela's has done it since 1988.

How to Make Mummy Brownies

Four steps, and the first one is the only place you can go wrong.

Melt the white chocolate gently. Short bursts in the microwave with a stir between each, or a bowl over a pan of simmering water. White chocolate seizes faster than dark does, and once it has gone grainy there is no bringing it back.

Drizzle it back and forth across each brownie in uneven horizontal lines, leaving a gap near the top. Uneven is the point. Bandages are not tidy, and neat parallel stripes read as a barcode rather than a mummy.

Press two candy eyes into the gap while the chocolate is still soft. If it has already set, stick them down with a dab of melted chocolate on the back of each.

Let everything set at least an hour before serving or moving them.

Cut First, Then Decorate

This is the mistake that ruins a whole pan.

Cool the brownies completely before cutting. They firm up considerably as they cool, and a warm brownie drags under the knife and tears at the edges.

Cut into nine squares with a sharp knife, wiping the blade between cuts.

Then decorate each square separately. Drizzling the whole pan and cutting through it afterwards smears the chocolate across every cut and you lose the bandage lines entirely.

Let them cool fully before the chocolate goes on, not just before cutting. White chocolate drizzled onto a brownie that is still warm melts straight into the surface instead of sitting on top as bandages, and the lines disappear.

Bake 18 minutes and no longer. A toothpick should come out with a few moist crumbs rather than clean. Brownies baked until a toothpick comes out clean are dry brownies.

The mix these are built on Pamela's Gluten-Free Chocolate Brownie Mix Just add oil, egg, and water. GFCO-certified.

Choosing Candy Eyes

Look for candy eyes that are certified gluten-free, and check the white chocolate too.

Most candy eyes are sugar, cornstarch, and food coloring, none of which contain gluten on their own. But they are small novelty decorations made in a lot of different facilities, and the ingredient list alone does not tell you about cross-contact.

A certification on the package does. It is worth the thirty seconds in the aisle, particularly if you are baking for someone with celiac disease.

The same goes for the white chocolate. Certified gluten-free is the one to reach for.

If you cannot find certified candy eyes, pipe two dots of white chocolate and add a smaller dot of dark chocolate in the center of each once set. It takes longer and it works.