Beat together egg yolks and sugar. Whisk in cream. Stir in cognac and spices. Beat egg white until it's stiff and carefully stir into other ingredients.

Mix in a little more than half of the flour. Let dough stand, covered and in a cool place, overnight. Use the remaining flour-as little as possible-for rolling out the dough; the less flour you use, the more tender the fattigmanns bakkels will be. Roll the dough out a little at a time and as thinly as possible. Use a fattigmann cutter to cut out diamond shapes. Make a small diagonal cut in the center of each diamond, and "thread" one point of the diamond through the cut. Heat lard to 350º F. Fry fattigman until golden brown.

Excerted from December, 1999, Viking Magazine "Velkommen til Bords." Recipe from TINE Norske Meierier, the Norwegian dairy cooperative. Recipe is translated and converted from metric to U.S. measurements.