I’ve always been intimidated by the precision that’s required in baking done right. I have a few sweets that I do well, but I’ll head to the packaged baking mix section of the grocery store in a New York minute. Unfortunately, as we all know, boxed mixes taste like box, right? Yes, most of the time, but they don’t have to.

Today I had a sudden hankering for blueberry muffins. Homemade? Don’t hold your breath, buddy. But a little doctoring can change things. I remembered that I had a bag of frozen blueberries at home, so I grabbed two of the more popular mixes here in my neck of the woods and planned a bake off.

Betty Crocker is a ubiquitous national baking brand, but Jiffy is more of a southern thing. Wildly popular here in south Louisiana, many cooks swear by the sweet cornbread mix. I personally do NOT like sweet cornbread, so I rarely use the cornbread mix, but the blueberry muffin mix is pretty good if you’re in a hurry and need a fix. Today I put Betty and Jiffy head to head and added fresh blueberries to augment the “blueberries” (blue artificial bits) that come with the mixes.

Betty was straight forward enough: just add milk. Jiffy asked for milk and an egg. I used half & half to make myself feel better about using boxed mix. Cut me some slack, people.

Anywho, both came out great, but the Jiffy muffins were lighter and fluffier, as one would expect with the addition of the egg. Both brands were a little drier than I like my muffins, so next time I’ll be adding butter to the mix. Overall, though? Pretty darned good for a quick dessert when you’re pressed for time but want to give the house a treat.

Here’s a close up. Jiffy on the left, Betty Crocker on the right.

And one more of the fluffier Jiffy muffin. Yummy. For a box.