To roll lefse thin, start with cold dough, rub flour into a cloth stretched tight over your board and into a cloth cover on the rolling pin, and roll each ball with a few light strokes, turning it as you go, until you can almost see the cloth through it. Then lift it with a long flat stick and lay it on a hot griddle. A 12 by 9-inch cutting board makes rounds about 8 inches across, smaller than the classic size and every bit as good.
Lefse is a soft Norwegian flatbread made with riced potatoes, flour, butter and milk or cream. Wikipedia’s entry on lefse notes that Norwegian Americans brought the tradition to the United States, that it is especially popular around the Christmas holidays, and that family members often gather to make it as a group effort.
What you need
Lefse has its own short list of special tools: a potato ricer, a rolling pin with deep grooves, long wooden turning sticks and a large flat griddle. The dough is rolled on a well-floured pastry cloth or a cloth-covered lefse board, and some cooks also put a cloth cover on the rolling pin.
You can make good lefse without most of that:
- A potato ricer. This one is hard to replace. The dough needs smooth, fine potato with no lumps.
- A board and a pastry cloth. A cutting board with a floured cotton pastry cloth pulled tight over it gives you the same surface as a lefse board, only smaller.
- A rolling pin with a cloth cover. A grooved pin is traditional. A smooth pin in a cloth sleeve works for small rounds.
- A long, thin, flat stick. A wooden lefse stick is the classic tool. A clean, thin wooden ruler or the handle of a long wooden spatula will carry an 8-inch round.
- A griddle or a large skillet. Heat it to about 400°F. A pancake griddle or an electric skillet does the same job for smaller rounds.
The dough, a day ahead
This makes about sixteen 8-inch rounds.
- 4 cups riced russet potatoes (about 2½ pounds before peeling)
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- About 1 cup all-purpose flour, added on the day
Peel and boil the potatoes until a knife slides through. Drain them well and rice them while they are still warm, twice through the ricer. Stir in the butter, cream, sugar and salt until the butter melts. Spread the mixture in a shallow dish, cover it and refrigerate until cold, several hours or overnight.
On rolling day, work the flour into the cold potatoes with your hands, a little at a time, until the dough holds together and no longer feels wet. Add no more flour than it needs.
Divide the dough into 16 balls, each about the size of a golf ball, and keep them in the refrigerator. Take out two or three at a time.
Set up the board
Stop the board from sliding. A damp towel under the board keeps it still while you roll. Why your cutting board slides explains the trick.
Stretch the cloth tight. Lay a cotton pastry cloth over the board, pull it taut over the edges and tuck or clip it underneath. The dough should meet a smooth surface with no wrinkles.
Rub the flour in. Scatter a few tablespoons of flour over the cloth and rub it into the weave with your palm. Do the same to the rolling pin cover. The flour should disappear into the cloth, not sit on top of it.
The board does the work a lefse board does, on a smaller scale. A WONAMU. bamboo cutting board is 12 × 9 inches, which holds an 8-inch round with room for the stick to slide in from the side. If you have rolled cookie dough on a board, the feel is similar; can you roll cookie dough on a cutting board covers the basics of a floured wooden surface.
How to roll it thin
- Flatten the ball first. Press it into a disk about 3 inches across with your palm, on the floured cloth, and smooth any cracks at the edge.
- Use light strokes. Roll from the center outward with almost no pressure. Lift the pin slightly as it reaches the edge so the rim does not go thinner than the middle.
- Turn the dough, not the pin. After each stroke or two, give the dough a small turn on the cloth so it stays round. If it starts to cling, slide the stick under it, lift and dust a little flour beneath.
- Stop when you can see the cloth. Lefse is thin when the weave of the pastry cloth shows faintly through the dough. On a 12 by 9-inch board that happens at about 8 inches across.
- Scrape and re-flour between rounds. Scrape any stuck dough off the cloth with the back of a table knife, then rub in fresh flour before the next ball.
Thin dough is fragile, so do not try to pick it up with your hands. Slide the stick under the middle of the round, lift so the dough drapes over both sides, and carry it to the griddle.
Cook and keep them soft
Heat the griddle or skillet to about 400°F. Lay the round down by rolling it off the stick. Cook until the underside shows light brown spots and a few bubbles rise on top, usually a minute or so, then turn it with the stick and cook the other side.
Stack the cooked rounds between clean cotton towels as they come off. The cloth keeps them from drying out. Once they are cool, fold them and store them in a sealed bag in the refrigerator.
Roll the next round while one is on the griddle. With two people, one rolls and one cooks, and the rhythm is steady.
Serving and clean-up
The most common way to eat lefse is spread with butter, sprinkled with sugar and rolled up. American lefse is also served with cinnamon sugar, brown sugar or lingonberry jelly before it is rolled. A small stack of rounds sits well beside the Christmas morning table; the Christmas morning breakfast board has ideas for what goes with it.
Raw flour is a raw food, and the FDA advises washing cutting boards, utensils and counters with warm, soapy water after contact with flour or raw dough. Shake the pastry cloth outside and launder it. Brush loose flour from the board into the trash, wash the board in hot soapy water, rinse, dry it with a towel and stand it on its edge.
The short version
Rice the potatoes warm, chill the dough, and add the flour only on rolling day. Stretch a floured cloth tight over the board, cover the pin, and roll each ball with a few light strokes, turning the dough until the cloth shows through.
Carry each round on a stick, cook it at about 400°F until spotted, and keep the stack under cotton towels. On a 12 by 9-inch board, the rounds come out about 8 inches across, the right size for one person and one roll of butter and sugar.
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WONAMU. makes a bamboo cutting board designed for daily prep, 12 × 9 inches, bamboo, with a perimeter juice groove. Available on Amazon.
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