Traditional Swedish Butter Cookies

I got a special treat in the mailbox today- a tin of traditional Swedish cookies. Just like caramels are my thing, these cookies are John's aunt Nancy's. She has been making these for years and years, and she will have to be dead and buried before some people let her off the hook making these things. This year she made 250 dozen cookies. No, that's not a typo. She makes about 10 different kinds and ships them all over the country.

Last year I got to go up and help her make them. She's a machine. We made the same amount last year. Since the dough requires over night refrigeration, we made all the dough one day, then I came back the next day to help bake.

Some of the cookies are her own creation, like the white chocolate peppermint ones, and others are so old they call for "washed butter". (She just uses regular butter.) I looked it up on the Internet to find out what exactly washed butter is though. Back in the day, after you churned the butter yourself, sometimes the recipe needed you to wash it. Seriously, the recipe is that old.

Other recipes call for more difficult to find ingredients. There is a little rectangular cookie with sugar crystals on the top. Those aren't just any sugar crystals, that is special Swedish Pearl Sugar. The recipe has no sugar in the cookie, it is all on the cookie, so you need the special sugar that won't melt. I had a hard time finding anything for less than about $12 for a 10 ounce box with s&h, but Nancy got a deal on a huge bulk shipment of it, so she graciously sent me a few batches worth.

I'm not normally a coconut fan, but there are these "Drommar" (dream) cookies. They have coconut, coconut extract, and coconut oil in the recipe. I haven't managed to get my hands on the coconut oil yet, but I have managed to get my hands on the other elusive ingredient- Baker's Ammonia. Seriously. It's powdered ammonia. Nasty stuff. So nasty in fact, you can't eat the dough. And it stinks to high heaven, but it bakes out leaving no trace, yet this incredible light yet crispy texture to it.

So I my plan is to attempt to bake a few different kinds of cookies this year, but I am still swamped with caramel making these days. Despite not doing the boutique at the school this year, I have still been pretty busy (happily so) making caramels for the random person who calls me up. ("hey, are you selling caramels again this year?") I'll be sure to blog about any successes or failures when I do get around to making them.