It’s that time of year again when all the baking supplies come out in full force and cookie tins abound. My usual Christmas goodie staple for the past few years has been chocolate macaroons (recipe provided in my blog index). But this year I really wanted to go all out and get back to my roots. I wanted to make Peppermint Cookies. But not just ANY peppermint cookies. This particular recipe that I have has been passed down through generations of women in my family, with its origins in old Europe.The tricky thing about this recipe is that it calls for a particular ingredient that sets it apart from any other peppermint cookie recipe out there. This ingredient is baking ammonia (ammonia carbonate). In Europe, it is sometimes referred to as Hartshorn, which was a derivative of the horns of the red deer. Hartshorn was used in the 17th and 18th centuries in many European cookie recipes, and was a precursor to baking powder. It is a wonderful leavening agent, though specific to cookies – as the thinner mass allows the ammonia to bake off and evaporate (which is why you don’t taste it).
Because I am not living in old Europe, it is very difficult to find baking ammonia. Not many recipes call for it here in Canada, unless they are old fashioned recipes passed down through generations of immigrant families like mine. The only way to get this ingredient - short of hunting deer and rendering the horns - is through a pharmacist, and even then very few have this ingredient accessible to the consumer. I had called close to every single pharmacist in Edmonton today, and no one carried it in stock (which led me to asking myself how my grandmother ended up in possession of her supply). I did end up lucking out in the end: as it turns out, the ONLY pharmacy in Edmonton that carries this substance is Market Drugs. So now I will be able to share my family recipe with friends and colleagues.
These cookies sure bring back memories of my grandmother’s magical place that I loved to go to as a child, as she made these cookies frequently. And surprisingly, the ammonia itself also brings with it some memories. Not only was the recipe handed down through generations of my family: it was also a rite-of-passage to be the unwitting victim of ammonia sniffing. Ammonia in its pure form is a very strong, nasty smelling substance, and sniffing it is indescribably painful.
I recall being 8 years old and watching my uncle Tony removing a small pill container from my mother’s baking cupboard and calling me over. “Hey, come here and take a whiff of this”, he said to me. Because so many ingredients from that baking cupboard are wonderfully palatable, I willingly put my nose right over the container and took a good sniff. Immediately following, I screamed. It felt like fire burning right up through my nostrils and into my brain. I clasped my hands to my nose and ran around the house for about five minutes until the pain subsided. When I told my mother later she couldn’t withhold her snicker, because (being my uncle Tony’s big sister) she had done the exact same thing to him when they were younger. This discovery prompted my decision to share the pain as well: I offered the same experience to my little brother – who reacted precisely the same way that everyone else in the family had.
So not only are these cookies the most amazing, fluffy, minty cookies around, but they also embody a true family legacy of sibling torture that is likely unprecedented anywhere.
