Bonnie: Making from-scratch brownies is as easy as baking gets. To melt some butter, mix it with sugar, cocoa, eggs and a bit of flour to get a batch of chocolate chunk, fudgy brownies ready for baking takes me less than seven minutes.

I know: I’ve timed it. I timed that and a few hundred other brownie (and cookie) recipes when writing magazine recipes and cookbooks, as readers always want to know the time involved in the preparation.

Of course, the key to doing so is to have all the ingredients in the house and on the counter, ready to be used. Mise en place.

Here’s recipe for one of my favorite brownies from my “365 Great Cookies and Brownies” (HarperCollins, 1993) cookbook:

Chocolate Fudgy Brownies – made in just seven minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease at 8×8-inch pan.

Melt 1 stick (4 ounces) butter over low heat or in microwave oven. Mix in 6 T unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 c granulated sugar. Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition; then stir in 1 t vanilla extract. Gently stir in 1/2 c flour and 1/4 t salt; then mix in 1 c chocolate chips or chunks. Turn into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Remove to rack and let cool before cutting into squares.

But if you’re not inclined to bake, these Sugabettens brownies are as close to homemade as I’ve found commercially. (Don’t be put off by their amateurish photo!) The brownies contain the same high-quality ingredients you’d use at home, and they package them attractively for a gift. Each box of brownies includes Sugabettens beginnings…which I learned are the ends and corners from the cuttings of the brownies.

Eric liked his Sugabettens Bars made with coconut, chocolate chips and nuts more than the brownies. Those — by the way — cost $36 for 6; $68 for 12. All orders have a shipping charge of $13.95.

Sure, these are expensive at a time when everyone’s tightening their belts, but sending this consumable gift to an entire family, instead of an individual, makes it seem like more of a bargain. A delicious one.

Bryan: As I’ve mentioned before, my additional focus group (beyond the experienced palettes of Bonnie and Eric, of course) is my office. The rate at which a product disappears at the office is directly proportional to how tasty a product actually is. Case in point: I brought in two boxes of ginger candy a few months ago, and these boxes are still sitting on the commissary countertop. I brought in a box of Sugabettens Bars a few weeks back; it was gone in an hour and a half. You are now reading about Sugabettens Bars. You will never read about the ginger candies.

Three different products emerged from the Sugabettens box that showed up at my door last month; brownie bites, brownies and bars, (a well balanced mix of coconut, chocolate chips and nuts). I love to share the food I receive, and, as a friend was over, I handed the baggie of brownie bites over to her, asking only that she get back to me with a full report. The small plastic bag resembled something you might find in your mom-packed lunch in third grade…small misshapen and broken brownie pieces. The actuality is that these are just the pieces that don’t make it into the nicely shaped box. (Oh, I regretted giving these away.) My friends “full report” came only hours later, when I received a text asking what I had put in those “crack brownies.” The addictive treats had been devoured in a single sitting.

I was not going to make that mistake twice — I am a chocolate fanatic, if I haven’t already said — so I decided to leave the brownies at home and bring the bars to the office. After trying a small (and delectable) sample, I unleashed my colleagues on the bars. Not only were they gone, but everyone was clamoring to let me know how good they actually were…. These were the biggest success since the Island Way Sorbets, which people were actually hiding from each other in the freezer!

Another office-related correlation learned is that the rate of product disappearance has no relation to calories. The speed at which the 35-to-70-calorie sorbets vanished was similar to the disappearing Sugabettens bars (calories to be unnamed for safety). Sugabettens’ motto answers all questions, though, by boldly (and accurately) stating; ‘Unforgettable, Never Regrettable’.

Eric: When I was asked for my opinion of the Sugarbettens brownies, I had two words: Friggin’ Delicious. I am an avid baker, but being one, I rarely enjoy the fruits of my labor. It is unfortunate, but for the majority of us bakers, the sheer enjoyment of devouring a pan of warm brownies is about as appealing as biting directly into the half pound of butter we use to make them. Don’t think I’m not human. I will indulge in the occasional sweet treat, but usually not one that I’ve made on my own.

I am the black sheep of the family in the sense that I don’t gorge myself at the presence of chocolate. I enjoy it, I eat it, but at the end of the day, I would choose a fruit platter over it. There is one dessert – a unicorn of the dessert world – that leaves me weak in the knees, and when I opened the box of brownies and saw the “jungle bar” (a combination of coconut, walnuts, chocolate and sweetened condensed milk), I nearly cried in anticipation. It seemed to me like a slow-motion movie as I opened the box and pulled-out the heaviest jungle bar I had ever encountered. After one bite, it was like street crack made legal. I was addicted and I needed to sit down.

I started acting weird soon after: trying to justify to my girlfriend that we should have some before and after dinner, sneaking away to the corner of the kitchen at 3 am to grab a small bite, hiding my stash so that visiting friends wouldn’t be able to find them. It would have come to the point where I needed an intervention to get off of these delicious treats – but fortunately for me — and my health — the box was empty after a week.