Brownies. Sort of.

I wanted to make something easy for a treat swap tomorrow night, so I asked my mom for suggestions.  She came through with three options.  Two of them involved a tool I do not have readily accessible at the moment (a kitchen mixer), so I went with the third option - brownies.  The fact that I've never made brownies before didn't faze me at all.

Nor did the fact that I didn't have unsweetened baking chocolate, regular flour, Crisco, or an 8x8 pan.  Instead, I used a 60% cocoa chocolate bar with crystalized ginger; a mix of whole wheat pastry flour and buckwheat flour; butter; and 1.5x all the ingredients to fit the pan I had with me.   So that was yesterday.

Today, I invested in few new items for a second batch.  So for the chocolate, I used a mix of bittersweet chocolate chips and a Lindt dark chocolate/orange bar; for shortening, I used applesauce; and I baked it in my cupcake tray using my brand new cupcake papers.  I also added a teensy bit of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.  

Based on my preliminary taste tests, I think both batches may have come out OK, but I'll see what my friends say tomorrow.   I think I can pitch the cupcakes and the regular brownies as "chocolate gingerbread cupcakes" - and they will probably be amazing with heavy cream.

I'm kicking myself now, though.  After I made my cupcake batch tonight, I looked more closely at my pantry and realized I actually had regular flour all along and could have used it in either or both batches.  Sigh.