quote:
Ammonia cookies
According to the food history reference books, "Ammonia" cookies are not one specific cookie recipe but a whole host of edible treats using ammonium bicarbonate, an old-fashioned (probably now hard to get?) leavening agent. Ammonium carbonate is a byproduct of hartshorn, a substance extracted from deer antlers [harts horn]. Hartshorn is most commonly referenced in old cookbooks in jelly recipes. It was also known a source for ammonia, which could be used as a leavener.
"Hartshorn...1. The horn or antler of a hart [male deer, esp. Red deer] the substance obtained by rasping, slicing or calcining the horns of harts, formerly the chief sources of ammonia. 2. Spirit of hartshorn, also simply hartshoren; the aqueous solution of ammonia (whether obtained from harts' horns or otherwise). Salt of hartshorn, carbonate of ammonia; smelling salt."
---Oxford English Dictionary
"Hartshorn was formerly the main source of ammonia, and its principal use was in the production of smelling salts. But hartshorn shavings were used to produce a special, edible jelly used in English cookery in the 17th and 18th centuries."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] (p. 372)
"Ammonium bicarbonate...This leavener is the precursor of today's baking powder and baking soda. It's still called for in some European baking recipes, mainly for cookies. It can be purchased in drugstores but must be ground to a powder before using. Also known as hartshorn, carbonate of ammonia and powdered baking ammonia."
---Food Lover's Companion, Sharon Tyler Herbst, 3rd edition [Barrons:New York] 2001 (p. 14)
"Ammonia cookies...Any variety of cookies made with a leavening agent called ammonium carbonate, or baking ammonia. They are most commonly found in Scandinavian-American communities In their book Farm Recipes and Food Secrets from the Norske Nook (1993), Helen Myhre and Mona Vold wrote, "Talk about Old Faithful, this was one of those basic stanbys every farm lady made."
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 6)
"Ammonia, is a gas and its ordinary form of Spirits of Ammonia, or Hartshorn, is water saturated with the gas. Ammonia is sometimes used in Baking Powders, but being extremely volatile must soon lose its strength."
---Grocers' Hand-Book and Directory for 1886, compiled by Artemas Ward, publiwhed by The Philadelphia Grocer Publishing Co. (p. 13)
Recipes:
The International Cookie Jar Cookbook, Anita Borghese [Scribner:New York] 1982 contains some recipes which list ammonium carbonate as an ingredient: Kokosdromme, Denmark (p. 32-3) and Halfmanar, Iceland (p. 41-2)
AllRecipes lists two recipes for ammonia cookies.
There are some companies that still sell baker's ammonia. You can locate these products on the Internet (Google search "bakers ammonia")
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