The thirteenth door - who wants to lick the bowl?

This recipe came into my family via my sister, from her cooking/baking class at school. Ever since it has been a tradition to make these for Christmas and although I'm not the baking kind and although I got quite a few weird looks by people who know me well, I overcame my inner "non-baker" to make some for to show you.
Actually there were a few bakers in my paternal grandmother's line, but that gene cried out when it saw me and ran for its life ...

Let's get going and make some "Rumschnitten". Which means "rum slices", by the way.

What you need - in metric numbers. When I tried to translate that into US measurements, I was accused of trying to mess with peoples' minds because the numbers were so odd, hehe.
Just use this converter and you'll be fine (I hope ;-)).

7 eggs (separated into yolk and egg white)
200 grams of butter or margarine
200 grams of sugar
200 grams of flour
200 grams of grated hazelnuts (I like to use almonds)
200 grams of finely grated baking chocolate

250 grams of powdered sugar
rum (I used whisky because I never have rum at home, but if you want your kids to be able to eat them, just use some other non-alcoholic flavor, it also tastes nice with lemon juice for example)

200° C, 10 to 15 minutes (that's 390° F).

Don't forget to pre-heat the oven to 200° C.
And now get ready to mess up your kitchen! If you are like me, that is. After baking my kitchen looks as if a herd of warthogs has run through. Warthogs with very sticky feet, that is.

First mix the sugar and the butter until it reaches a fluffy texture.


Now add the yolks, the flour, chocolate and nuts. This is a pretty heavy dough without any fluid, so be sure to mix well!


This is what the dough will look like. Tempting already, I tell you ...


Afterwards add the beaten egg white and fold it into the mix.


You'll notice it'll feel a little heavy in the beginning, but after a bit the dough will be getting smoother and it won't lose much of its fluffiness although it may seem so to you. Just be sure not to thoroughly mix dough and egg whites, but probably it's not necessary to tell you that unless you are a non-baker like me. "Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it" as Stephen Sondheim put it in "West Side Story". "Turn off the juice, boy." Noooo, not the oven's juice!
Instead we'll spread the dough on a baking tray now, about 1 cm high and into the oven it goes, for about 10 to 15 minutes. The ones you see here were in for 14 minutes and 23 seconds.


In the meanwhile I mixed the powdered sugar with some whisky for the icing of the cookies. Don't use too much fluid or the icing will run off, but I also highly recommend not to use too much fluid on yourself and leave nothing for the sugar ;-)


When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven, apply the icing and cut them while they are still warm.
Voilà, there you are. Enjoy!


P.S. I will not jump into one of the discussions about if it's good or not to lick the bowl. Let me just tell you that sometimes I wondered if I even should bother baking those things before eating ...