It’s virtually failproof.  That’s what Fatboybakes had said on his blog when he dedicated a recipe to me out of duress.

I had blitzed 140grams of butter with 80 grams of brown sugar. In an effort to make it my own, I had exercised some creativity in switching the brown sugar for some fragrant ground palm sugar (gula melaka).

I then added one egg and a teaspoon of McCormick’s vanilla extract (RM20 a bottle).

I felt like a pro as I saw the beautifully blended ingredients.

Easy peasy as I threw in 150 grams flour and ½ a teaspoon of baking soda. Fatboybakes’ resounding reminder of baking soda, not baking powder, kept me alert.

I had a good feeling about this. I couldn’t possibly fail.

In went 150 grams of chocolate chips. I tasted the batter. Perfect. The palm sugar had added a new dimension to the recipe. I couldn’t wait to show off to Fatboybakes. Hmmm. Perhaps I’d bring him some cookies and let him try Lyrical Lemongrass’ Luscious Lovelies, I thought to myself.

Everything went like clockwork. I had remembered to heat up the oven, and I had not spilled anything. More importantly, there was no smell of burning peanuts.

Spreading out my newly acquired Wilton Silicone Baking Mat, I spooned gobs of batter onto it, and baked the cookies at 180C for 12 minutes. Halfway through (that’s 6 minutes for those who look for precise information), I found that the cookies had SPREAD out and mated with the other cookies!

I stared at the alien-like product of my hard work. Nooooo….this cannot be my baby! Somebody switched it at the hospital!

I prodded it. It was soft. Fatboybakes had described it as one of the miracles of nature, how the cookies eventually hardened as they cooled. After staring at the cookies for a good 10 minutes, I poked it again.

Soft.

My cookies were in dire need of viagra.

Thankfully, I had enough dough for 2 more batches. My third attempt produced crisp cookies thanks to a slightly hotter oven.

Where did I go wrong? Well, firstly, my oven wasn’t hot enough, so the cookies did not retain their shape when I chucked them into the oven. But more importantly, upon doing my post-mortem with Fatboybakes bright and early on a Monday morning, I realised that I could never be the American Idol winner. In short, to quote Fatboybakes:

WHAT? YOU USED PALM SUGAR??

♥