Lefse Making

Being Scandinavian, lefse has been part of our "diet" since as long as I can remember. My Grandma has made lefse for years and is considered the expert in our family. She has made thousands of rounds and even sold her lefse to area churches for a small charge. Grandma has now retired from this job and my Mom and aunt make lefse for our family gatherings.

Allie & I thought it would be great to learn how to make this Scandinavian staple, so Mom taught us how to be lefse makers last weekend. Going into it, I thought it was going to be quite difficult. (I'm not the most handy person with a rolling pin, but I'm working on it.) I was pleasantly surprised with how well the dough rolled out. I was getting a bit too confident and didn't use enough flour one time, and then had lefse dough sticking to the board. After this incident, I erred on the side of caution and used more flour before rolling out (probably too much flour, but it worked this time). As with most baking tasks, I think using the right amount of flour is the key to being successful. With more experience, I hope to get a better feel for how much to use.

First you start with 10 pounds of red potatoes, boiled and riced (this can be done ahead of time)

Then rice the potatoes a second time when you're ready to make the dough

Stir in flour, salt, cream, etc. and make small little rounds of dough

Roll out lefse dough on board

We had two rolling stations and two griddles, which worked great so all of us could be working at one time. 10 pounds of potatoes was a lot!

Allie & I had to show off our rounds. I have to say some of my rounds of lefse weren't that round (jagged edges, oblong shapes), but luckily they all taste the same!

Find taste testers!

We gave CJ a warm lefse round and didn't put anything on it - he just ate it plain and not rolled up at all. It must have tasted yummy! In our family, we usually put butter and sugar on top and then roll it up into a little log. I have heard of families that only put butter on their lefse, others that use brown sugar instead of white sugar, and still others that don't put anything on it. In fact, Joel's Grandpa Bjorge ate lefse rolled up with turkey inside. Any way you eat it, it's delicious!

After rounds cool, package up and either eat within a few days or freeze. We made 60 rounds of lefse that afternoon and had a great time learning. I'm sure we will do it again next year, if not before. Thanks for teaching us Mom!

CJ wanted to make his own lefse with Play-doh. He even was rolling them up, like we do in our family. Pretty cute!