Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks - Ammonia Christmas cookies

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Ammonia Christmas cookies

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Topic: Ammonia Christmas cookies

Posted By: ACinSC
Subject: Ammonia Christmas cookies
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 6:39am

My German grandmother used to make these . Anybody else know anything about them ? Thanks

Replies:

Posted By: modirt
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 7:52am

Ammonia?

Was that to keep the kids from eating them?

Germans on my mother's side.....and they all made versions of a Christmas bread.......not sweet like a stollen or fruitcake......but nuts, currants plus heavy spices. Fennel, caraway, coriander, anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, all spice and ginger. Sister has done some research and it appears to trace back to a bride one of the ancestors married that was from Switzerland.

Interesting how those things get handed down over the generations. Like family farms, some survive.....some perish.

Posted By: steve(ill)
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 8:12am

Cut and paste from the internet............

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT AMMONIA COOKIES

I want to be very clear that we’re talking about https://amzn.to/354lftn" rel="nofollow - baking ammonia , not the bottle of ammonia that you might have as a cleaning product. I had never heard of baking ammonia, also known as ammonium bicarbonate, but I have learned interesting things about it.

In the early 1800s, it was the primary leavening agent before the invention of baking powder and baking soda. So if your family has a recipe that calls for baking ammonia, it’s an old one!
Baking ammonia also has been used as smelling salts reviving many a fainting Victorian lady.
It’s used in crisp cookies and crackers. The end product needs to be something that is essentially dry when baked. Otherwise, the unpleasant odor lingers.
It’s still used today in some Scandanavian, Northern European, and Middle Eastern traditional recipes, such as these ammonia cookies.
The tiny crystals degrade and turn into gases in the heat of the oven. As the gases escape, they leave behind tiny air pockets that provide for light, crisp baked goods.
It was originally made from ground deer horn. I cannot imagine how or why. Who was the brave soul to be the first to try that?
Ammonium bicarbonate is also used as an ingredient in a Canadian brand of cough syrup, smokeless tobacco, and camera lens cleaner.

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Like them all, but love the "B"s.

Posted By: ACinSC
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 8:25am

Guess I should have said baking ammonia . I actually got some for my Mother years ago when she couldn't find any . Thanks !

Posted By: modirt
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 8:47am

Learned something new......had never heard of that one.

Am constantly amused by some ingredients in recipes........all common stuff except for the on secret ingredient that you must have.........and can't find anywhere. Like "eye of newt harvested at midnight on 3rd full moon of the month".

Posted By: modirt
Date Posted: 08 Dec 2021 at 8:49am

And my own personal pet peeve........ingredient amount.......is "to taste".

Family mincemeat pie filling recipe......amount would fill half a 5 gallon bucket.......about a dozen ingredients.....including sugar. How much? Sugar "to taste". WTF!!!!

Posted By: Ted J
Date Posted: 09 Dec 2021 at 1:27am

I have a LOT of my Grandmothers' recipes. It's a dab of this, a couple of fingers of that, half a palm full of......

My Grand parents and my GREAT grand parents on my Mothers' side owned bakeries and I can still smell the aroma when I woke at 5 in the morning. They lived up stairs and I spent a lot of time with them.

I've NEVER been able to replicate ANY of her recipes.

Also, Grampy made homemade root beer in the LARGE dough vat. His recipe.......all he had was the ingredients listed. NO amount of ANYTHING! And I remember it was GOOD....no, make that GREAT!!

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"Allis-Express"
19?? WC / 1941 C / 1952 CA / 1956 WD45 / 1957 WD45 / 1958 D-17

Posted By: ACinSC
Date Posted: 09 Dec 2021 at 6:31am

Yeah Ted , Grandpa's brother made his own root beer too. Haven't thought about that for awhile . Thanks

Posted By: modirt
Date Posted: 09 Dec 2021 at 8:36am

Spousal unit's grandparents came over from Italy shortly after WW1. Grandfather became head chef of a famous Italian Chicago steakhouse. The kind of place celebrities would go to when in town. Didn't matter what you ordered, you always got a side of pasta with red sauce on it. Customers loved that stuff and his red pasta sauce got shipped all over the place. Lucille Ball was a regular.

He made it from memory and never the same way twice, yet it always turned out the same. For some reason, nobody ever tried to write it down.......so when he died, the secret sauce went to the grave with him. None of them have ever been able to duplicate it.