Swedish Dream Cookies with Coconut (Drömmar)
Gourmet | December 2000

"This recipe for Swedish drommar, meaning 'dreams,' comes from my grandmother," writes Elizabeth Wigg Maxwell of New Providence, New Jersey. "She and my mother made these every Christmas when my siblings and I were growing up. As children, we were amazed that my mother had to go to the pharmacy to obtain one of the ingredients: ammonium carbonate. Equally incredible was the fact that something which smelled so horrible [baker’s ammonium] helped make such delicious cookies!"

FMM: These were very good when I first made them - chewy with coconut. A few days later, they were dry. I made them with baking powder instead of baker’s ammonium.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon crushed ammonium carbonate (also called baker’s ammonium) [can substitute 1 teaspoon baking powder]
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Sift together flour and salt.

Beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in ammonium carbonate and almond extract until combined well. Mix in flour mixture at low speed just until blended, then stir in coconut. Form dough into a disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and arrange 1 inch apart on greased baking sheets. [I got 18 on a baking sheet. The cookies do spread a bit.]

Bake cookies in batches in upper third of oven until pale golden around edges, 18 to 22 minutes. Let cookies cool on the sheet for a few minutes; they are quite fragile. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool.

Yield: about 3 dozen