Happy November!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween (if you celebrated it!). I didn't dress up or go out or anything, but there are a lot of kids in our neighborhood and we always give out candy, so I did do that. While baking some chocolate applesauce cupcakes. The original recipe was from the November 2006 issue of _Better Homes and Gardens_ magazine, and it was called Chocolate Harvest Cake. It became chocolate applesauce cupcakes when I discovered that I had no cooking oil in the cupboard and substituted some cinnamon applesauce for the oil, and didn't want to dig out my regular cake pans from the back of the cupboard.

They came out moist and "springy", with a good texture, but I'm not sure I like the applesauce flavor with the chocolate. I think I need to eat another one, in order to decide ;) I decorated some of them with caramel apple candy corn, to see if they would be a good addition to the November tea party. I think I need some frosting, instead of the powdered sugar glaze that I had, and then they will work.

Now to decorate the rest of the cupcakes (I have some buttercream frosting in the freezer) with sprinkles or red hots or more candy corn, and try them out with a cup of Assam. It has been raining all day, and while it's not been cold and miserable, I always feel like baking and having a cup of tea when the weather's like this. And the plus side is, the garden is getting watered!