D is for Drommar

Michelle's socks are finished! It was a long, long process - I don't think I'll ever knit these things with Baby Ull again (80 stitches around as opposed to 64 or so with Falk really adds up!). But they're done, and I'm quite pleased with the way they look.

Ok, they're sort of done. In spite of frantic knitting over Thanksgiving weekend, and all the way to and through the Christmas Tourney in Elizabethtown - and even trying to knit while riding with the dogs on my lap - I wasn't quite able to finish. None of the ends of Sock #2 are woven in - which wouldn't be a problem with normal wools, but is more of an issue with superwash. I offered to take the second sock back to finish it, but Michelle didn't want to give it up. I wonder if I can get away with this for Amanda's socks, too?

I'll have plenty of time for Amanda's socks, because the next Sockday up is MINE!!!!!! I'll try to wait another month or so before getting too excited, but let's just say that if I started an Advent calendar, I wouldn't be counting the days until Christmas.

Michelle ensured that no one would leave her Sockday celebration empty-handed by suggesting we combine it with a cookie exchange. Unlike the socks, I prepared the cookies ahead of time, since I knew we'd be coming home on Sunday just in time for me to head to the party. So last Thursday I made 108 Drommar, plus some extras for holiday gifts - including a dozen for the nice co-worker who covered for me so I could stop by Michelle's.

I was late getting there because we came home through the rain and the Colts traffic - and I came home to a dead battery (did you know that jumper cables won't work if they're grounded to a painted part of the car?), but I pressed on. And I'm glad I did, because of all the Christmasy Cookie deliciousness that awaited me (and because we really didn't want to eat 108 Drommar all by ourselves). So the take-home booty includes a dozen each of

• Peanut Butter Cups by Michelle
• Mexican Wedding Cakes by Amanda
• Snickerdoodles by Heather
• Praline/Sea Salt wafers by Samantha
• Molasses Drops by Elizabeth
• Chocolate Crinkles by Debbie
• and an assortment of cookies from Sheryl

So my trip to work included a quick stop for milk, because I wanted to start sampling right away!

Here's a sample of my contribution - Drommar, aka Swedish Reindeer Cookies. The recipe linked above isn't really the one I use - mine don't have almond extract or coconut, for starters - but I couldn't find a more similar one. The key ingredient is the same in both - Hartshorn salt, or ammonium bicarbonate.

My recipe comes from a friend, who tells me that the ammonium bicarbonate used to be extracted from ground-up antler. Since it's a Scandinavian recipe, and it's Christmastime, that has to mean Reindeer horn, right?

The big downside to these cookies is that you can't eat the dough, and that the kitchen stinks when they're baking. But all those concerns fade in the face of cookies so delicious that I've seen highly trained physicists ignore the laws of thermodynamics to try - more than once - to pluck the fresh cookies off hot cookie sheets. They keep really well, so it's not necessary to do that.