As you can probably tell by looking through our website, even if just briefly, we’re Danish and American. So of course, most of our recipes are our take on Danish baked goods, sometimes with an American twist, and sometimes not. But part of the reason we started this blog was so that we could venture out of that, and we’ve started to do that a bit more recently with recipes for things like köttbullar (Swedish meatballs) and hjertevafler (Norwegian heart-shaped waffles). It’s really fun to take on recipes from the rest of Scandinavia because while they are unique and definitely different to Danish recipes, they still have the same feel of homemade goodness to them.
So, having said that, today’s recipe is for a Norwegian type of potato pancake or flatbread, called lefse. Many people have their own variations on lefse, so some may have potato in them (ours do!) while others may not. Either way, they are absolutely delicious. You just can’t go wrong with flatbread! In Norway, you sometimes eat them with cinnamon sugar butter or, alternatively, a type of cheese called brunost or “brown cheese” in Norwegian (myseost in Danish!). We also enjoy eating them with butter and jam, which is just generally our go-to topping for most things.
Making these flatbreads is seriously so simple! Just boil the potatoes in salted water, then mash or rice them until there are no lumps left whatsoever. Next, add butter and half and half and let the mixture cool for a few hours. When it is cooled, add the flour and knead until you have a dough. Divide into small pieces, roll into flatbread, and cook on a pan over medium heat. Simply and delicious! Top with whatever you like, get experimental with it (Nutella? Tacos?), and enjoy!
Lefse (Norwegian Potato Flatbread)
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg (2.6lbs) potatoes (about 5 large)
- 57 grams (4 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
- Salt to taste
- 80 ml (1/3 cup) half and half
- 185 grams (1 1/4 cups) flour
Instructions
- Peel, rinse, and cube the potatoes. Boil until tender in heavily salted water.
- Drain and let your potatoes cool for about 5 minutes. Pass through a ricer into a large mixing bowl.
- You can also mash with a masher as long as you get rid of as many lumps as possible!
- Add melted butter and half and half to the potatoes. Let this mixture cool in the fridge for 3 hours or more.
- After your potatoes have cooled, knead in the flour to create a dough. Add salt to taste (we usually don't add more since we boil the potatoes in heavily salted water). If it is falling apart or remaining sticky, add more flour until you have a dough that sticks together.
- Divide your dough into 16 equal pieces.
- Preheat a pan over medium low heat on the stove.
- Shape your piece of dough into a round disk.
- Then, roll out until you have reached about 1/8 inch thickness.
- Oil or butter your pan lightly and add your flatbread.
- Cook for a few minutes on each side until you have some brown speckling and the flour has cooked through.
- Repeat the rolling and cooking process with the remaining dough. Serve with butter and jam, or enjoy it with savory toppings!
The lefse recipe calls for 2.1 kg (2 lbs) potatoes. But 2.1 kg is more like 4.6 lbs. What is the correct weight?
Hi! Thank you for catching the error, I must have flipped the 2 and the 1 when writing this – it should be 1.2kg (1200g); so sorry about the error, the recipe should be updated with the correct conversion too, and thank you again!
Our family gets together once a year to make these! My great grandparents were from Norway and brought this tradition with them- we have always put butter and sprinkled sugar on top and rolled up. Since we have been doing it for so long it always just brings fun memories when I now share it with my kids.
It’s so wonderful how food can bring back such amazing memories, isn’t it? 🙂 Thanks for your comment! Butter and sugar on top sounds so good, will have to try it next time I make these.