When a good brownie recipe goes bad

I've been making my mom's brownie recipe probably since I was 9.  Today I decided to make a few substitutions.

I swapped out the butter for unflavored coconut oil, used flax instead of eggs, and raw organic cashews instead of walnuts.  

But when I subbed out the eggs for ground flaxseed, I hadn't accounted for how thick it would make it.  

So I mixed in a cup of chocolate chips and figured I would bake them as cookies instead of brownies.

Peach was okay with that plan.

Biscuit was okay with it too seeing as she got a beater.

I wasn't sure if they would spread or not, so I only put 8 on the trial pan.

We peeked at them through the oven door.  They didn't seem to be going down.  I wondered if I should've flattened them slightly.

The girls were enjoying their beaters.

The cookies decided to spread and spread.  They looked like a greasy explosion with a bit of thickness near the center.  

So I decided to try brownie bites in a mini -muffin pan.

I even flattened them down with my thumb before baking.

They ended up a bubbling greasy mess.

I let them cool hoping to salvage SOMETHING from them.

But their greasiness soaked through the paper liner as it baked and the liner became one with the brownie.

This is a picture of the petrified brownie bite.  There was no removing the paper from the brownie bites.

Peach looked on in sadness as I dumped the 2-dozen bites in the trash.  

I let the kids eat the crispy on the edges and coated in grease cookies that were gooey in the middle.

But I didn't make the remaining batter.  My friend Melissa convinced me it would be a good ice cream topper and to save it for another time.

Family Home Evening refreshments ended up being "Bitty S'mores."  I gave each child 3/4 of a graham cracker, 6 mini marshmallows, and 9 chocolate chips.  They were happy and sugared up.  

The moral:  Use real eggs and real butter in your brownies.