The Boxed Brownie Hack That Giada De Laurentiis Just Tried

There are some kitchen hacks that work and there are some that turn out to be nothing more than empty promises. And when she's not trying out a new pasta recipe, Giada De Laurentiis puts the best of these hacks to test before she weeds out the ones that are genius and gives them her stamp of approval.

Whether it's stripping fresh herbs through a colander, adding Calabrian chile paste to store-bought pasta sauces, or using pasta water to make light and creamy sauces, the television star has several kitchen tricks up her sleeve. But that's not all — De Laurentiis often tests trending hacks on her YouTube channel Giadzy. In a series called "How To Hack It," she shakes warm milk in a mason jar to make frothy cappuccinos and uses a blowdryer for a crispy chicken, officially deeming them all internet hacks that do indeed work.

Now, the "Giada at Home" host is back putting another hack to test. This time, however, De Laurentiis and her fans both have their doubts about the supposedly genius trick.

When De Laurentiis saw a certain baking hack that promised to fudgy brownies each time, she put the hack to test. Sharing the process on Instagram, De Laurentiis said that she had "heard a tip that said if you dunk a hot pan of brownies in ice water, it gives them a more dense truffle texture."

Using two boxed brownie mixes, De Laurentiis baked one pan of brownies as normal and dunked the second pan into an ice bath as soon as it was out of the oven. The trick here, according to her website, is to only bake the brownies till they are cooked so that when you remove them and plop them in ice water, all the cooking immediately stops and the brownies are left with a center that is dense and gooey, like chocolate truffles.

Roped into a taste test, her boyfriend Shane Farley found one batch to be a clear winner between the two. Astonishingly, the winning brownies were the ones that didn't get the ice bath. This brownie hack got a huge thumbs down from De Laurentiis. 

Fans were not impressed either and were especially concerned that the temperature fluctuation from plopping a hot baking tray made from glass into a cold ice bath could be dangerous. "I was like omg at what moment will the glass baking dish break in that ice bath," wrote a fan, and another stated, "Do not put hot glass in ice water ppl." It seems like the jury is out on this brownie hack too!