Turning recipes I liked as a child into a delicious gluten free version is one of my favourite things to do. That being said, they don’t all workout. Today I had an epic recipe failure trying to make soft oatmeal cookies. Where did I go wrong? More like, where didn’t I go wrong?

I was supposed to use 1/2 a cup of butter. I was slightly under but figured it wouldn’t make a difference. To be honest, I don’t think that is what caused the impending doom of my cookies. I wanted to use less sugar. Instead of using 1 cup of white and 1 cup of brown sugar, I opted to use only 1 cup of coconut sugar. I didn’t feel like getting out my electric beater so I decided to cream them the old-fashioned way, using a spatula. It took forever. On top of that, I realized I used the wrong measuring cup for my sugar and only put in 3/4 of a cup. Oh well, too late to go back now and we can all use a little less sugar, right?

This is where it got really messy. I had to beat in 2 eggs. I tried to do this with a whisk, a big mistake. It looked like scrambled eggs and peanut butter and there is no peanut butter in this recipe. I broke down and got out my electric beater to try and fix it. Eventually, it came together. Next came the flour. The original recipe called for 2 cups of flour, so I simply substituted it for my gluten free flour in an equal amount. For some reason, I decided to keep using the beater. I had the wrong attachments in for mixing dough and it got overly thick and sticky and I couldn’t get the mixture out of the beater bars. So what did I do? I turned up the speed. Away it flew, all over my kitchen. The walls, the cupboard, my appliances, the floor, and myself. Oy, what a mess.

I still had enough dough in the bowl that I decided to continue. You may be wondering why I am using the term dough instead of batter. Well, by the time I finished the next step I could have made a pizza out of it. I needed to add in 3 cups of quick oats. There was no way I was going to be able to stir them in. I pushed back my sleeves and started kneading the oats into the dough by hand. It took forever. By this time I was so invested, I decided to go through with the baking process, just in case my intuition was wrong (it wasn’t). I chilled the dough, lined my cookie sheet with parchment paper and rolled out 29 2″ balls, and placed them on the sheet. I put them in the oven to cook. Partway through I realized I had forgotten to press them down with a fork. I thought with all of that butter they would flatten out on their own, but that thick dough did not budge from the shape of a ball. I took them out, flattened them as much as possible with a fork. They were tough so they didn’t flatten that well. I put them back in to continue baking. When they were finished I took them out and let them cool.

Sample time! I was terrified. They looked okay but I knew I had made so many bad choices they were going to be, well, interesting to say the least. The first cookie I tried was not cooked all the way through, so it was very doughy. I picked a smaller cookie. It was cooked, but it was crunchy, not soft. Not the good kind of crunchy, the kind that sits in your stomach like a brick. The sugar and cinnamon were detectable (I wish I had gone for that full cup). I could still taste the flour and butter. Too buttery. I’m not a huge butter fan, so I found it overwhelming.

So there you have it, my not so chewy, hard, doughy, gluten free oatmeal cookies. I was so embarrassed, as this is by far the worst thing I have ever baked. And just like that, they were tossed into the compost bag. Oh well, 2 hours of hard work for nothing. Next time I will use the proper equipment and a recipe without butter.