"Baked" Spicy Brownies Fairy Style

It is always great to learn something new when baking. I learned a lot this week while making brownies for my Baked Sunday Mornings group. My mother gave me a gift certificate to Penzey's Spices. I studied and found what spices I wanted to try..one being chili pepper. I was reading another brownie cookbook and it said that chili powder is not good for brownies unless it is pure.

I immediately jumped up because I wanted to see that my chili powder was not pure...I always thought it was. To my wide eyed surprise I discovered that my chili powders had garlic and cumin in them!! Who wants brownies with that? Yuck. So one of the spices I purchased was pure chili so I could make chili brownies. Side note about my spices: How different could spices be? Well, I have never known what real cinnamon is until Penzey's. I will never go back!

The original "Baked" brownie is one of my favorite recipes. This one not so much. It could be that I have made 4 different brownie recipes recently. One of them "chili brownies" which were outstanding! Even though my husband claimed the cornmeal brownie to be the best on the planet.

So when I made these I was really expecting wowie zowie spicy brownies like the others I had just made. (Baked on the left and the other on the right)  The taste was mellow...but I could taste the ginger. I didn't like the taste of ginger in my brownie. If I made these again I would double the chili pepper and half the ginger. The texture was grand! They were beautiful with a crisp top crust. 

What do you do when you have so many baked goods? 

 We like to divide them up and deliver them. We call ourselves "cookie fairies". Most Sundays are spent baking and delivering to others. It is super fun!!

 This week we delivered: Brownies, Mayan Mystery Cookies, and Preacher Cookies.

Spicy Brownies

From: http://bakedsundaymornings.com/2012/12/03/in-the-oven-spicy-brownies/

Yield: 12 large or 24 small brownies

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder (like Valrhona)
1 tablespoon ancho chile powder (I would double this)
2 teaspoons freshly grated cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger or
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (I would half this)
9 ounces good-quality dark chocolate (60 to 72%), coarsely chopped
2 ounces good-quality milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature (or 6 medium)

Assembly

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan. Line the pan with parchment paper and butter the parchment. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, chile powder, cinnamon, salt, and ginger and set aside. Melt and combine chocolates and butter. Add both sugars, whisk until completely combined.
Let the mixture come to room temperature. Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until just combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate. Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until there is just a trace amount of the flour mixture visible. Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
Bake the brownies for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan comes out with a few moist crumbs. Remove the brownies from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting and serving.
The brownies can be stored at room temperature, tightly covered, for up to 4 days.