[Sca-cooks] Lefse .... help me please

[Dan Brewer]

Here is a recipe for you
During the latter part of the 1800s, 30,000 Norwegians immigrated to
Wisconsin. Today, nearly a half million people are their descendants out of
a total population of 5.5 million. In other words, almost 10 percent of
Wisconsin residents are of Norwegian descent.

Expert lefse makers use a lefse griddle (a large, round electric griddle
that heats up to 500 degrees), a grooved lefse rolling pin, and flat wooden
lefse turners. But you don't have to buy special equipment to make lefse.
You can use ordinary kitchen utensils: an electric fry pan (that heats up to
400 or 450 degrees Fahrenheit), a rolling pin, a pancake turner, and a large
mixing bowl. You will also need potatoes, butter or margarine, a little
sugar, some milk, and flour.

Rolling lefse is a skill that requires plenty of patience and lots of
practice. Expert lefse makers produce pieces that are as large as the top of
a snare drum and practically thin enough to read a newspaper through. My
lefse, which turns out just like my mother's did, is about the size of a
dinner plate and somewhat thicker.

Lefse experts recommend ricing the cooked potatoes, but my mother always
mashed the potatoes. Refrigerating the mashed or riced potatoes overnight
makes the lefse easier to roll out.

When you're ready to start making lefse, take the potatoes out of the
refrigerator and mash or rice them again. I have one of those crisscross
patterned potato mashers, and it works well for taking the lumps out of the
mashed potatoes. Lefse rolls out easier if the dough is cold, so make sure
the potatoes are cold when you start. You may also want to refrigerate the
dough for a while after you mix it. I have noticed that when I reach the end
of the batch and the dough is starting to warm up, the lefse is harder to
roll out.

Making a batch of lefse from this recipe takes about one and a half hours
and will yield approximately two dozen pieces, depending upon how much dough
you use for each one.

Here's my mother's lefse recipe from the book Christmas In Dairyland.

Lefse

- 4 heaping cups of mashed or riced potatoes
- 1 stick of butter (or margarine)
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 2 cups of flour
- extra flour for rolling out the dough.

Measure out the mashed/riced potatoes into a large mixing bowl. In a
medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter/margarine in the milk; stir in the
sugar and salt. Then pour over the cold mashed (riced) potatoes and mix.

Stir two cups of flour into the potato mixture. The dough will be sticky and
soft.

Start heating the griddle or electric frying pan. Do not add any oil,
margarine or shortening. Lefse is baked on a dry surface.

Take a lump of dough about the size of an egg. Place a heaping teaspoon of
flour on the surface where you're going to roll out your lefse. Work about
half of the heaping teaspoon of flour into the lump of dough (enough so you
can handle the dough, but not so much that the dough becomes dry).

Starting in the center, roll outward until the lefse is about the size of a
dinner plate. Try not to roll the lefse so thin that you cannot pick it up.
If the lefse tears when you start to pick it up, gather it into a lump and
roll it out again. Don't do this too many times, though, or your lefse will
end up tough and dry. Ideally, you should only roll the lefse once, although
that's probably not a realistic expectation if you've never made lefse
before. Also try to turn the lefse only once while you are rolling it out.
If the lefse starts to stick, add a little more flour.

When you have the lefse rolled out, transfer it to the hot griddle.
Carefully pick it up and quickly move it. If you move slowly, the lefse is
more likely to tear. Expert lefse makers use flat lefse turners (they look
like long flat sticks) to transfer the dough by rolling it onto the turner
and then unrolling it onto the griddle. You can also try rolling your lefse
onto the rolling pin and transferring it to the griddle or the fry pan.

Once you have the lefse on the griddle, bake it for about a minute, just
until brown 'freckles' start to appear; then turn the lefse over and let the
other side bake just until brown freckles start to appear. While the first
piece of lefse is baking, roll out your second one.

After the first piece of lefse is done, use the pancake turner to remove it
from the griddle and place it on a clean dishtowel. Cover with another
dishtowel.

Bake the second lefse and roll out the third piece.

When the second lefse is finished, place it on top of the first one and
cover with the towel again.

Then bake the third piece.

Repeat until you have baked all of the dough. Place each newly baked lefse
on top of the previously baked lefse and cover the stack with the towel.

Once the lefse is completely cool, place it in a plastic bag or wrap it with
plastic wrap or aluminum foil to help keep it moist. You must wait until the
lefse is completely cool before wrapping it, otherwise the heat from the
lefse will condense inside of the plastic or the aluminum foil, and your
lefse will end up soggy. If you leave the lefse overnight without wrapping
it in plastic or aluminum foil, it will probably be dried out in the
morning. If the lefse dries out, sprinkle a little water on the dishtowel
and wrap the dishtowel and the lefse in plastic. The lefse will soften up
again.

When you're ready to eat a piece of lefse, spread it with butter (or
margarine), sprinkle sugar on it (some people also like to sprinkle cinnamon
on their lefse), and roll into a log.

Also, once the lefse is cool, it can be frozen.

This recipe is from the book Christmas In Dairyland by LeAnn R. Ralph.

Dan in Auburn

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Phil Troy / G.
Tacitus Adamantius
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 6:26 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Lefse .... help me please


On Dec 23, 2006, at 7:20 AM, Georgia Foster wrote:

> I am a bad daughter.
>
> I have lost my mother's Lefse recipie and I am supposed to make  
> them for her man for a Winacht gift from her. (I would rather be  
> kicked to death by little red spiders, but she IS my mom and there  
> are very very few things I would NOT do for her).
>
> I recall that there were few ingredients ... potatos, cream, flour  
> and butter, but I dont recall how much of what makes a 12 lefse batch.
>
> Anybody with ideas?  Google has proved either less-than-helpful or  
> TOOO helpful depending on the users point of view.

I seem to recall that the potato variant of lefse (which to many is a  
dried, grain-based, or partially grain-based, storage food like that  
crackerbread whose name escapes me, but which can be reconstituted  
with moisture to an amazing degree), is pretty similar to Swedish  
lompe. I may have a recipe; I'll look, but if all else fails, I think  
I have somewhere in one of the Jeff Smith books that keep  
mysteriously appearing on my shelves, a lompe recipe that works for  
lefse (which tend to be larger, as I recall).

Let me look and get back to you...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04


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