Frozen Malted Milk Cookies

The recipe card clearly said Frozen Malted Milk Cookies. Sounds good? You bet. But then I made them and learned three things.

First, these are not cookies. Second, they are not frozen (nor have they ever been). Third, the first two don't matter because these "mistakes" are so incredibly good, you'll want to make them today.

My first error was buying the wrong kind of Ovaltine (original malt instead of chocolate malt), the recipe's not-so-secret signature ingredient. Trust me, it doesn't matter. My second was following the recipe exactly when I knew, halfway through, that it would fail. But then I did something very right -- instead of discarding the batter (and pouring myself a drink), I decided to change my expectation from cookies to ?? I poured the batter into an 8 x 8 pan, popped it in the oven and crossed my fingers.

What emerged from the oven 25 minutes later was the most buttery, most delicious and most addicting dessert. Was it a mild gingerbread? A spicy coffee cake? The perfect breakfast muffin (in a square form)?

So, if you want to try one of my very best mistakes yet, please do. You won't be sorry.

Below, the liquid-y batter. I knew I could never roll it into logs, refrigerate and then slice and bake the cookies, as the recipe indicated.

I lined an 8 x 8 pan with parchment paper, in lieu of greasing and flouring the pan. It's the lazy way out, but the parchment can be used like a sling to lift the cake from the pan for easy slicing. This batter would also make excellent muffins.