Lefse

This recipe came from Glady Schloe’s sister, Lucille, in Sisseton, SD. Gladys and Melvin (Roger’s Mom and Dad) made these every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas. One would roll the dough and the other would cook them. There are shortcut recipes that call for instant potatoes, but no self-respecting Schloe would eat one! If you’re going to do this right, you should invest in a lefse set-up from Bethany Housewares…aluminum satin finish electric lefse griddle (skip the non-stick! just rub some flour onto the hot griddle and after it gets toasty brown, wipe off with an old piece of terry towel you can toss later), 2 thermostat probe controls (switch out every hour or so), a canvas covered rolling board (big and round, with red size markings…works for pie crusts, too!), and a good rolling pin (Chris prefers the red-handled one covered in a stretch knit rolling pin cover that she loads with lots of flour by rubbing it in between rolling lefse), and finally a good sturdy lefse turning stick.

Ingredients

  • 4 pounds russet potatoes

  • ¹/₂ cup cream

  • 4 oz unsalted butter

  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

  • 1-¹/₂ teaspoons fine table unsalted

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour, divided

Directions

  • Peel and cut the potatoes into large chunks.

  • In a large pot, combine the potatoes with enough lightly salted water to cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain the boil, but not boiling over (!)and cook until tender when pierced with a sharp knife. (Also, the potatoes will fall apart when you insert a fork into the center of the chuncks and gently twist.)

  • When the potatoes are tender, drain well and put immediately back into the hot pan and stir over the burner for less than a minute or so to evaporate off any residual water. Remove from the heat and pass the potato chuncks through a ricer or food mill placed over a large bowl.

  • Add the cream, butter sugar and salt and mix very well. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate overnight.

  • When you are ready to roll and cook the lefse, add 2 cups of the all-purpose flour to the cold potato mixture and mix very well. You can use your hands to really mix it all in. It will be sticky, but not impossibly so! The less flour you use at this point, the more tender your lefse will be. Take about 1/4 of the dough out of the bowl and return the rest to the refrigerator.

  • Turn the griddle on and preheat to 375-400 degrees F. Prepare your rolling surface; Before you roll each lefse on your canvas covered lefse board, make sure you have rubbed in a very generous amount of flour. Do the same to the cover on the rolling pin. If a damp spot develops at any time during rolling, use a sharp knife or toothpick to remove any dough and rub a good amount of flour into the area.

  • NOTE; Do not start rolling dough until your griddle is hot. Lefse left to sit on the rolling cloth will become damp and impossible to transfer to the griddle. To roll the lefse; Roll about 70 grams of lefse dough into a ball. Roll the ball in some flour and using your hands, flatten the ball into as thin a pancake as you can. Place the flattened ball on the very-well-floured board and, rolling from the center of the pancake outward but never over the edges, continue to roll the lefse into a large circle about 10-12” in diameter. You should be able to read through it!

  • Using your lefse transfer stick, carefully slide the stick under the edge of the lefse and then using a quick back and forth motion, continue to pass it under the entire lefse to release it from the rolling surface. Stop just before you reach the far side of the lefse, move the stick back about 1/3 of the way and carefully lift the lefse up and over to the griddle. Let the longer edge of the draped lefse just touch the griddle and lowering your hand closer to the griddle, let it drape onto the hot surface as you then slowly move the stick out from under the lefse. Let it cook, undisturbed for a few minutes – the heat is right when it develops brown spots but not black spots after a few minutes on the griddle. Using the stick, with much the same technique you used to the get the lefse off the rolling surface, pick up the lefse and flip it by using the same technique you used to the place it on the hot griddle. If you find your lefse are puffing up big pillows during the cooking, pierce with a sharp-tined fork. The lefse are done when you have lovely dark brown spots and the lighter areas look “cooked” and not raw. It’s something you just have to do by trial and error. It usually takes about 3 minute total per lefse, but sometimes more and sometimes less.

  • DON’T GET DISCOURAGED! If you are having a lot of sticking, use more flour (that’s why you did’t add it all to the dough in the beginning.) If the transfer to the griddle doesn’t go smoothly, and it piles up, just let it cook to firm up before you try to adjust anything. Moving a raw lefse on the griddle before it sets up will just create a big sticky mess. If the lefses seem to stick to the griddle even after they are cooked, toast a bit of the flour on the empty hot griddle and wipe off with the terry rag. The toasted flour fills in the tiny crevises in the griddle surface and makes it release the lefses more easily. NEVER grease a satin finish lefse griddle! NEVER use a tough scrubbie on the satin finish lefse griddle. If you have to use a non-stick approved scrubbie, wait until the griddle is cold and then rub in a circle to remove the sticky dough. Then rub with toasted flour and try again.

  • As your lefse come off the griddle, place on a clean kitchen towel that is placed on a folded bath towel. Then cover with another kitchen towel. No need to separate the lefse with anything. The towel will help soften the lefse as they cool, since they come off the griddle a little bit drier than you want them. (If you are making big quantities of lefse, turn the stack over now and then to let the steam work though the stack more evenly. )

  • Serve with butter and brown sugar, or leftover turkey-stuffing-cranberry sauce.

  • Lefse can be folded into quarters when cooled and stacked in piles of 4-6. Wrap tighly in foil and then place in zip-lock bags and freeze. When you are ready to eat them, let thaw on the counter, fully wrapped, or place the foil packets in the oven and heat about 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.