Are they Cupcakes? Or are they Brownies?

A few months ago, I ran across this recipe while in a waiting room somewhere, and loved it immediately.
I was planning on making them for Father's Day, as the article suggests, but I forgot (of course!), and so I created them on Independence Day.

Here are a few things I learned:

Its best to make the brownie/cupcakes the day before you plan on serving them, just don't decorate until the day of. This way, they have a chance to cool, and you won't spend a good portion of the day in the kitchen.

GREASE THE BAKING CUPS. This seems obvious, and I am sure all you experienced bakers would do this anyway, but I skipped this step because the baking cups told me I did not have to. I DID HAVE TO, as it turns out. :)

Skip the dying of the icing and sticking it in a bag and all that. I tried that, made a huge mess, and it still did not work. On the second batch, I used black piping gel (it had sparkles, an added bonus for the "grill") that we picked up at the grocery store for like 3 dollars. Way easier, because not only does it use less ingredients, it has easier clean up, and is VERY easy to put on the cupcakes.

Make a glaze of confectioners sugar and water to brush on the cupcakes before you sprinkle on the sugar crystals for "embers". Otherwise, the crystals just fall off. I believe the recipe calls for putting the "grates" on and then the "embers", but that is just silly because embers on a real grill are below the grates, and the glaze is easy to assemble, as well as being clear.

I could not find any orange sugar crystals, so I used a combination of red and yellow. It seemed to work just as well, so no problem there...

Okay I think that is it :)

I did have one problem which is that I could not find and caramel-cream candies that were GF!! So i just used the non-GF kind, had my sister stick them on, and did not eat those brownies.

The Whole Batch:

 The "Hot Dogs":

 The "Kabobs":