LEFSE ( Norway )
5 Large potatoes
½ cup sweet cream
3 T. butter
1 t. salt
Flour – use ½ cup per cup of mashed potatoes
Boil potatoes, mash well and add cream, butter and salt. Beat until light and then let cool. Add flour and roll into ball of dough, kneading until smooth. Form into a long roll and slice in pieces about the size of a large egg. Roll each piece round and as thin as possible. Bake on ungreased griddle or cast iron pan until light brown, turning frequently so as not to scorch. Use moderate heat. When baked, place between clean cloths or wax paper (to keep them from becoming dry). Serve hot or cold with butter (sugar or cinnamon too if desired). Roll each Lefse up and cut in half. Serve.
Recipe submitted by: Danielle Drake-Flam of Houghton.
This recipe came from my Great Grandma Lila Ekern Ratcliff. Her grandparents all immigrated from Norway. The brought this recipe with them, and it has been used ever since. We usually eat Lefse when my Grandma and Grandpa are at our house. I love Lefse a lot. I like it because it tastes delicious. My Mom grew up with her Mom making it often for lunch with soup.
My ancestors came from many places. But the recipe came from my Norwegian ancestors. One great-great grandfather of mine, Hans Anderson, Immigrated from Bergan, Norway in 1867. He was 12 years old and came over by steamer ship after six weeks of travel to Quebec. He came with his parents and siblings. They took a railroad train to Grand Haven, Michigan. Then they took a steamer to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Eventually they got to Whitehall, Wisconsin. They came with nothing because they sold their luggage for passage from Norway. In Whitehall, Wi, they slept in a cabin with boards for a roof and would wake up with snow on them. Hans was apprenticed out to a farm. He later became a lawyer and then a judge. He stayed in Whitehall, Wisconsin.
My Dad’s dad immigrated from Yugoslavia when he was young via Berlin, Germany. My Dad’s Mom’s family is mostly from Germany and immigrated about 1623 to America. My parents moved to the Copper Country in 1990. I was born at home in Stanton Township in 1997.
