Friday, October 31, 2014

Daughters of Norway Lefse Making

I had such a lovely day making lefse with my Daughters of Norway lodge friends.  Lefse is Norway's traditional flatbread.  It is made from potatoes and flour and the dough is baked on a grill.

This is the lefse mix we used.  There's two packets in this box; the first package is instant potatoes.  You take water and shortening and bring it to a boil, remove from heat and add the first package.  Mix well and let it cool overnight in the frig. Then add the second packet (flour).  Mix well and divide into golf ball size pieces.

Here's the necessary equipment for rolling the dough.  It's a cloth covered pastry board and cloth covered rolling pin.  Make sure both surfaces are well dusted with flour.

To insure smooth edges, take the ball of dough and knead in your hand for a few seconds.  Make a small disc shape and lay it on the floured board.

Roll out until thin and desired diameter.  Be sure to roll evenly across the dough so that you don't have thin edges.

More special equipment; a long wooden handled spatula and a very special soft brush made of goat's hair.

Slip the wooden spatula under the dough and place it on the hot lefse grill.  Use the goat hair brush to dust off the excess flour.

Here's a picture of one of the lefse grills...

Bake lefse on grill until the dough starts to bubble.  Then take the wooden spatula and turn over.  Be careful that your grill is not too hot as you don't want it to burn.

Take wooden spatula and remove lefse from grill and place on tea towels and cover with tea towel until lefse is cooled.

Here's a picture of my friend Geri who was  packaging the lefse after it's cooled.

And here's a photo of Astrid and Ardis after a fun day of lefse making. 

 Our group of 9 ladies today made over 200 lefse!  We had a fun filled day.

If you are interested in Daughters of Norway, click  here to see if there's a lodge near you.  We are a very old organization with our roots in America going back over 100 years.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into one of the rich customs of Norway.

Ha det bra (goodbye),
Pat 

Please stop by Handmade Harbour and meet some lovely crafters!









10 comments:

  1. Yum, these look delicious! It was interested to read how they're made as well :) x

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  2. That looks an interesting recipe I've never heard of them before! You all looked like you had lots of fun.

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  3. Great to see traditional crafts being kept alive. They look delicious!

    Have a lovely crafty week,
    Alison x

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  4. Mmm they look delicious, what a lovely way to spend and afternoon with friends :)

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  5. Thanks for sharing how to make them, they look delicious and its good to see you all had lots of fun making them.

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  6. They look so delicious! Looks like you had lots of fun making them too :) x

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  7. Fantastic post. My son loves lefse. Where did you get the packet mix from? Genius idea. Did you add buyer and sugar to the lefse after they cooled? Did you eat them all or dud you freeze them? So many questions. Again lovely post. What with your lefse post and my waffle post we are covering it all. 😉

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    1. Hello! My friend ordered the lefse mix from a store back in Minnesota. Yes, we sampled them with butter and sugar (and a little cinnamon, too). We didn't freeze them since they were served the next day. I really had fun making them.

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  8. Will you be having a Christmas fair or bazaar? I missed the London one this year as my daughter was unwell. It was such a shame. Usually a lovely evocative day out.

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    1. No, not this year. My Daughters of Norway had a fair day back in May 2014 and the next one is schedule for October 2015. That seems so far away.....

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