Well, maybe next year: vanilla cookies with baker's ammonia

It's almost upon us, is it not ragazzi?  Two more days.  Have you done your shopping?  Gotten up your tree? Planned your menu?  Or, should Annalena not be putting these questions to you because you are, well, at the end of frazzled.

Trust her, ragazzi. Annalena gets it.  She truly does.  If anyone can say "2012 was  not as tough on me as 2011 was," bravo to you, and tell us all how you did it.  Annalena just finished her  cookie baking today.  The beloved "sashas" came out of the oven at 11.  Now, she can turn to the mechanics of getting Christmas dinner on the table , and then the New Year's party, and then... rest, wonderful rest.

So, perhaps this is the wrong time to post, YET ANOTHER Christmas cookie, especially  since it calls for an ingredient you probably don't have (but Annalena knows where you can get it).  It is a cookie that is deceptively simply, and wonderfully good.  So, she recommends that, if you can't or won't do it this year, save this recipe and do it next year.  You will thank her.  Or, just make it as soon as you can.  The cookie is not particularly Christmassy, and who can't use a good Christmas cookie.

The mystery ingredient here, is baker's ammonia.  Also known as ammonium carbonate (which you should be able to get at the pharmacy.  You will have to ask for it.  It's a component of smelling salts).  It is also called salt of hartshorn, and for this reason, Annalena dedicates the column to Max.

See,  baker's ammonia is the old leavening agent used by Eastern Europeans, and Scandinavians. It predates baking powder, and baking soda, by hundreds of years.  "Salt of hartshorn," because it was oringally made, in a laborious process which involved extracting oil from the bones of deer. 

Now, Max:  Annalena suggests you not buy deer bones and get to work making  your own bakers ammonia.  But get some. All of you should.    And you might also put some of it in your regular cookie recipes.

And why is that?  Well,  the product results in a cookie that is so crisp: so SHATTERINGLY crisp, and so airy, you may wish to dispense with baking powder and baking soda all together.  Don't do that, but Annalena will tell you what to do, if you like it.

Today, the place the stuff is used, mostly, is in Ritz Crackers.  Putting aside issues of taste, or ingredients, if you like that texture, you will love these cookies.

Annalena has had several versions of this cookie around for a long, long time.  This year, she put them together, subtracted and added, and came up with what she thinks is a superior cookie.  You let her know, carini.

Let's get to work.  Preheat  your oven to 300 (this is one of the peculiarities of this leavening.  If you use too hot an oven, the stuff goes off, and you get no "lift.).    Get two sticks of butter,  either salted or un, depending on how you like your cookies,  at room temperature, into a bowl.  And get the best butter you can, because the taste of the butter is going to shine out here.  Add a cup and a quarter of granulated sugar and, if you're not using salted butter, a teaspoon of salt.    Also, squeeze in the juice of one, very large lime.  (this is where Annalena changed the recipes she has).  Mix all of these together.  Now add 2 cups of flour and a scant, quarter teaspoon of the baker's ammonia.  Stir all of this together, and mix it until you get a large clump of dough.

Break off lumps, about the size of a small walnut , and put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper  .  If you like (Annalena does not), you can roll them in granulated sugar or that wonderful ingredient, sparkling sugar, or even pearl sugar, before you put them in the oven.  They will spread a bit, so on a standard sheet, let's say no more than 24 of them.

You have to bake them for about 30 minutes.  Again, this is a result of the leaven.  It takes its time.  But if, like Max, you just spent upwards of two days making a pudding, 30 minutes is a spring.  DO check on them, because  with cookie making, much is imprecise.  If you used amounts that are smaller than the recipe, or than what Annalena did, yours will cook in a shorter period of time.  Look for browning on the edges.

The cookies will puff up, like little balloons, and then deflate.  When they come out of the oven, they are soft and need to be left alone for about ten minutes.  Then you can move them to a plate or tin.  They will have a rough, mottled texture.  Wait an hour, and eat one.  It will crack apart, like a well fried egg roll (can you tell Annalena has Chinese food on her mind?), and the combination of the butter, the salt, and the lime (in that order), will fill your mouth.    And you will want another.  And another.  And another.

So, once you've made these (and you can substitute, for example, vanilla extract or orange extract or almond extract for the lim juice:  1.5 teaspoons), what do you do with the rest of that baker's ammonia?  Well, if you have a cookie that you think could use more crispness, add a quarter teaspoon of the stuff to your standard recipe. Gingersnaps, for example.  Or lace cookies.  Don't do it to biscotti though.  You should be getting your crispness from a double bake there, and in a cookie like a coconut macaroon, are you REALLY looking for crispness?  That is PERVERSION in Annalena's view.

Annalena is off to the final stages of her Christmas planning.  Happy holidays to all, however you spend it.  Please try to hug and kiss one person whom you haven't in a while (and define "a while" broadly.  Let's start with a day).