Fattigmann means poor man - which is what you become if you make cookies with eggyolks, full cream, brandy and the horribly expencive spices, and then even deep fry them in lard!! The recipe is old, and people here did not have an aboundance of those ingredients, especially in winter close to x-mas time. Hens didn't lay eggs in the middle of the winter, cows milk wasnt fat, so you had to pine on the cream. Brandy was imported and expencive, the same with spices. But for x-mas it was important to have an aboundance of cookies and food - that showed what an exellent housewife you were.
The cakes should be cut in a certain way: With a cookie-wheel with (almost like a pizza-cutter, but the edge has a zig-zag shape) you cut cakes like the ace of diamonds 2x4 inches. Then you make a slit in the cake (about 2 inces)along the long diagonal, like a buttonhole in the middle of the cake. Then you put one of the narrow corners through the slit and pull (carefully!!)So that the shape resembles an ace of diamond again, but both long sides are twisted. Then you deep fry it.
They may be sprinkled with sugar or confectioners sugar. That is not commonly used in Norway. We like them as they are - so many other cakes/cookies in x-mas are sweet..(But on the table there may be standing a bowl of whipped cream mixed with sugered cloudberries not too far away , which may be eaten at the same time, which isn't too dumb)