Flour Substitution Failure #1

With about an hour before I leave to an ornament exchange party, I decided to try one of my favorite holiday cookies as the first official "flour substitution" project: a soft molasses cookie recipe from Jeanne Quinton, in Seattle. Confidently, I scooped equal measures of my new sorghum flour mix (proportions compliments of Jennifer Cinquepalmi, author of Gluten-Free Deliciously) to match the original recipe's requirements. Based on other GF baking recipes I've read, I tossed in a teaspoon of my new friend Xanthan Gum (the origin of which is rather amusing and very Heidi-appropriate, but I'll have to share another time) and mixed the remaining ingredients as-is. With hope in my heart (and salivating mouth), I waited impatiently for the first baking sheet of rounded, puffy, sugar-coated cookies to emerge from the oven. Here's what I found, instead:

So, apparently, either an elephant tromped through my oven and flattened my cookies, or there's more to this gluten thing than just sticking ingredients together. (Yes, I already knew that, folks. But I had to see it in action to believe it. Now I believe.)

They don't taste too bad, but they look awful and they are so soft that even slightly cooled they were still oozing through the slats of the wire cooling rack. I think I'll still bring them to the ornament exchange party and see if anyone is daring enough to try them. But at least I can check one thing off my list: I have now accomplished flour substitution failure #1. Whew. I won't ever have to do that again.