Did nobody else here grow up with ammonia cookies[1]? (Almost everything I can find online now is about the peppermint variety, which I didn't much care for. I loved the lemon sort as a kid.)
I remember an old german anise cookie recipe my grandmother used to make, but had to stop when she couldn't find hartshorn (ammonium carbonate) anymore. I don't recall much ammonia smell or taste in the final cookie.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_cookie