I had a very strange, semi psychotic friend in High School. She used to claim several things: that she was distantly royal to either the Danish or Norwegian royal family as well as to a very popular 80′s Australian supermodel who graced countless magazine covers.
Sadly, it turns out that they were all untruths. A fact we later discovered once we left high school (and I suspected when said friend bore no such resemblance to the supermodel, nor did anyone from her family know of any such connection). When we left high school, her whole make believe world unravelled and we realised that all of the tales that she had been spinning were a falsehood.
Apart from he monetary benefits, I’m not sure why people claim royal relations. I mean apart from the invitation to the wedding (which sounds like it might at least have good food) and the odd castle, family gatherings sound a bit stiff and dull. However, if one were part of the Norwegian royal family I think that there is the added benefit that you could eat any food any day that your heart desires.
I have more normal friends now, friends like Kathy. Along with another friend Nic and my mother, Kathy is one of the kind souls that are testing out recipes for my new book. It is a memoir rather than a cookbook but there are recipes slotted in at appropriate points where they fit the story. As they’re all brand new recipes that haven’t appeared on the blog, she offered to test out the recipes for me which was a huge relief and her feedback has been wonderful and heart warmingly positive. And occasionally she will suggest that I might give a recipe a go. This is one of them.
Norwegian lefses are a potato based flatbread that you can eat like a crepe that is made around Christmas or holiday time. The reason being is that they do take a while to make and like dumplings, are best done with a small group to hasten the process and make it more fun. The potato means that you use less flour so they stay moist and not dry at all. They are thin and even though there isn’t any egg in them they remind me of crêpes in a way and the first time Mr NQN tried them he ate 18 of them. And no I don’t keep him chained up in a basement, he just eats like he is a captive 
Making lefses properly takes some skill and to aid in this endeavour, there are special tools like pastry cloths and a ridged rolling pins. Experienced lefse makers can roll them out large, to the size of a dinner plate with the dough thin enough to read through. Alas, my lefse skills are more in the eating domain and I could only do smaller ones at about 10-12cm in diameter but they were still a hit at home with Mr NQN and his brother. I decided to play around with my Sigma macro lens to capture my favourite time in the day – not sunrise or sunset but the time when butter, cinnamon and sugar meet and melt together.
But since I had no royal connections, I did warn him that the next time I would make these would be Christmas
So tell me Dear Reader, do you still keep in touch with friends from school? And if you could belong to any royal family, which would it be? I think Monaco sounds like you would at least be left to do whatever you wanted!
Norwegian Lefse - Potato Flatbread With Butter & Cinnamon Sugar
Lightly adapted from Allrecipes, this is apparently a serving for four people but it makes quite a lot of lefse!
- 1.2 kg /2.64 pounds potatoes (can work with reconsituted powdered potato apparently!)
- 30 g/1 oz butter
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 120g/4ozs all-purpose flour plus more for rolling (you may need quite a bit more)
- To serve: butter, cinnamon and sugar
1. Cover potatoes with water and cook until tender. Run hot potatoes through a potato ricer. Place into a large bowl. Beat butter, cream, salt, and sugar into the hot riced potatoes. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Stir flour into the cooled potato mixture. Pull off pieces of the dough and form into walnut size balls. Lightly flour a pastry cloth and roll out lefse balls to 1/8 inch thickness-I rolled them out as thinly as I could without breaking them which would probably make a Norwegian lefse maker scoff
3. Cook on an unoiled or unbuttered frypan or griddle on medium heat until bubbles form and then turn over. It is done when there is a large bubble that pops up. Place on a damp towel to cool slightly and then cover with damp towel until ready to serve. Serve with butter and cinnamon sugar and roll them up. You can also serve these with savoury fillings like smoked salmon and dill creme fraiche or other sweet fillings like jam and yogurt.
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65 Comments | Add your own
Mmhhhh, a treat I’d love to taste/make. Those look amazing.
Cheers,
Rosa
They might be Norwegian but they are a Minnesota staple too! And I didn’t even know they were made with potatoes!
These look delicious particularly at that moment the butter melts with the cinnamon and sugar. Very tasty indeed.
It would definitely be Monaco for me. I keep in touch with a grade school friend but only on facebook!
What strikes me most is the color of the butter, so yellow–the color of really good natural butter I’m sure. American butter is just not that color. Huh.
These kind of look like they’d taste like a cross between gnocchi and pancakes – which cannot be bad at all!
I’d want to be a part of a lesser known yet still wealthy royal family – there’s too much scrutiny on the British one.
These look delicious! And what pleases me greatly is that it seems you just have a fairly regular frying pan! Always reassuring to see one’s idols use something standard rather extremely shmancy. Best wishes for your book – when will be able to buy it?
Kylie xxx
I’ve never had pancakes/flatbread like this but it sounds absolutely delicious. I’m lucky in that I’m still friends with my closest friends from school…
The butter melting on these delicious pancakes is too much for me – I am melting with it
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
how very delicious!!
I am really lucky to still be the best of friends with my best gal pals from High School – hard to believe that it has been 14 years since we graduated.
ok now I feel old
OMG this is my ultimate dish!!! Yum
do you have the American translation for grams and kilograms for this recipe, please?
Mordovia…or some other imagined lesser kingdom. Like Leichenstein.
Maybe it’s because I’m so far away or maybe it’s because I had a very small class of friends that I went from kindergarten through high school with – I keep up with most of them. Interwebically, of course.
I love this dish! I had 2 exchange students one year from Norway and Sweden and I learned a bit about the food and the culture.
This makes me miss those two boys! (who are well and truly grown men by now)
Hi Erica-done!
I’ve converted into American friendly quantities. There isn’t usually much difference between US and Aust teaspoons and tablespoons 
If you like this you might also like Irish Potato Pancakes. Very simple to make, use leftover mash from the night before, mix plain flour, a little salt & pepper in with the mash until you have a dough, then pat out to about 1/2 inch thick, cut into slices, and fry in butter. I like mine with extra salt & pepper. Yummee!
They look scrumptious Looraine. They also remind me that I must ring my sister in law for a recipe as my husband has been bugging me to make a Czech potato pancake that she tops with sour cream and bacon(definitely no weight watchers or Jenny Craig approved). As to keeping in touch with people from school we had ou 25th reunion in 2009 but otherwise just what they post on Facebook. Royal family would have to be the Romanovs as they seriously had some great places to live and some BIG jewels.
I’ve never heard of Lefse before
but they look just like crepes to me and never would have thought that they were made out of potatoes hehe 
YUMMY! HAHAHA Mr NQN eats like Mr Bao ~ lol I get asked if it’s because I don’t cook Mr Bao enough food that’s why he has this kind of appetite
LOL I still keep in touch with some people from high school but not a lot because I guess we’ve just grown apart
and if i could be part of a Royal Family it’ll definitely be the British Royal family the QUEEN still facinates me lol
Those pictures are killing me! I so want one of these right now….
I am aware that I am a little atypical, but eleven years on, six (yes, six) of my closest friends in the whole world are from highschool, and one of those I also went to primary school with. And none of them ever claimed a royal connection, although there is one (totally verifiable) story about her great-uncle being the last one of Rita Hayworth’s many husbands.
I’m a fan of anything involving potato. Have you tried latkes?
Oh, those look good!
You’re making want some right now with your gorgeous photos of butter, cinnamon and sugar melting together… On top perfectly thin lefse…
My husband’s ancestors come from Norway, his family found the name of the original immigrant a few months after his birth (lucky for him) – he would have been named Oskar Hoggbart Andersen!! Anyway I’ll have to grab the kids and have a go at making this to celebrate the Norwegian ancestory this weekend.
If I could choose a royal family to be part of it’d be the Tongan royal family, what a paradise to live in (or visit).
Ok, I think all little girls can dream to belong a royal family, with all the fairy tales we have, why not? But a young girl may sound strange. Of course if I can belong to a royal family, it may some Inca’s…Pachacutec…!!!
And this kind of “panbread” could be part f my daily food, you know, it is made with potato.
Now, whereas I won’t promise to go and prepare these, they DO look awfully moreish
! And do come from one of my favourite countries in Europe !! Royal family: Swedish, methinks: paternal grandmother did come from there . . . and am not fibbing, but some blue blood did run in her veins 
! Was practically disowned by her family for marrying an Estonian farmer!!!
Oh they do look yummy. I think I might have to try them this weekend with smoked salmon and dill and horseradish creme fraiche.
I would have to go for a Ruritanian royal family and belong to the royal family of Belsornia.
I’ve really got to make these now!
If they’re anything like gamjajeon then they’ll be delicious.
We may have to try these. Lily is allergic to eggs so all kinds of goodies like he father’s famous pancakes are not being tried yet. This may become the Gorgeous Garry’s new recipe for Saturday mornings…
How tragic that she thought that in order to belong she had to come up with fantastic stories. Does she attend any school reunions or is she too embarrassed. I would like a job as a recipe taster. These do look lovely. I have no royal connections but I do think ‘our Mary’ was born for royalty xx
Yum I do love potato pancakes and these flatbreads look even more delicious. I’m happy to just be part of my own family, although my girls do like to pretend to be princesses.
Yum! As soon as I saw the words ‘butter’ and ‘cinnamon sugar’ I was in. They look too delicious. I’ll have to wait for a special occasion to make them so I don’t feel too guilty about eating them
Come to think of it, it is my birthday soon…
yum!!!
This is one goodness I wont be able to stop eating once started..
God look at the pics, that melting butter Yum…
Royal family? Never crossed my mind… I don’t want to belong to any royalty, celebrity, etc., too much publicity and no privacy at all. I like a walk on the beach with no one following me…
Great cakes!
These look delicious! I love hearty potato pancakes – I’m sure I could give Mr NQN a run for his money in the pancake-eating stakes!
This certainly looks appetizing. I could beat Mr NQN and have 19 and a half. Your friend sounds awesomely weird. I would never be royal because i have a short pinky. And that’s that.
Oh how yummy, and lucky mum and Kath to be your taste testers!
my own family is quite enough of a handful on its own, thankyou, but Princess Mary looks pretty happy with the Danish Royals I guess.
these sound lovely and not that far away from scottish potato scones which are also mostly mashed potato, flour and butter but not as elegantly thin. (which you might say about me and a lot of royals – ha ha ha)
i once had a friend who was like this too. so you’re not alone nigella
Love cinnamon meets butter! Hate potato though a I know I’m strange.
As to royal family to claim – I’d quite like to try excessive and despotic cos it might be fun until the locals do you in. Medici? Borgia? Ancient Roman? Or maybe Tonga as they like an eccentric leader and have good weather.
~~~Lorraine,
we have LOTS of Norwegians in Minnesota, so Lefse is a Tradition around many households.
I LOVE IT!
xxx
btw, I’m hooked on a new series: *Justified.* The guy is really hot, too.
I’m a HUGE tato fan and these sound and look delicious. Have you been to Mad Spuds cafe in Surry Hills? All things TATO! Anyway, I had weird friends in school and uni but this probably is not the best place to talk about them
Ha ha! What a funny person that school friend was! This sounds like a recipe worth trying if Mr NQN liked them so much
The texture of these is stunning!
To answer your question about keeping up with school friends, not really. Except that I married a boy who I went to school with from the 6th grade on and still have the best friend that I met when I was 7 – that counts right?
I’m still close friends with many of my friends from throughout my schooling years – still friends with my kindergarten and primary school best friends, friends from highschool, college, and uni. Even the girl I met on the day she was born, when I was six weeks old.
When I connect with someone, I DON’T LET GO. Expect to see me hanging around you Spay Lady throughout all future
xo
These look so delicious, reading this at breakfast time and getting very hungry!
Amazing Lorraine. That glistening knob of butter and sweet, sweet cinnamon sugar is so evil to view on day 1 back on my diet after my holiday
I am so intrigued. I love potatoes but never had flatbread like this! I will eventually have to try this out… looks a little bit of work but someday! Looks yummy!
The other Nigella makes something similar that we have been making for a while, I think in her ‘Express’ book.
My daughter always wanted to be related to Anastasia Romanov.
An appropriate time of year to make them Lorraine since Thursday is Norway’s National day. They look great. Melted butter, cinnamon and sugar is one of my favourite times of day too! Happy 17 Mai. Hurrah!!
cinnamon, yum!
you layered the crepes like a pretty fan
I love watching butter melt, there’s something mesmerising bout it…and your pancakes look amazing, makes me hungry!
Macro lens? That is the last lens on my list that I intend to get as soon as I’ve mastered the wide lens (I got a great lesson from that lovely Australian AC on the last movie… NOW I know what that mysterious number did!!!). Your pictures are beautiful and the story rings so many bells.
A great friend of mine (who died a few years ago) loved embellishing his own history but did it so well and was such a character that all his friends enjoyed his tales!
No embellishing necessary for these little cakes… my they look good with the melting butter… must try!!
When my siblings and I were kids, my parents would make lefse every New Year’s Eve – I don’t know how this tradition began or why because we’re in no way related to anything Norwegian, but I have fond memories or buttered and sugared rolled-up lefse
Your post reminds me I need to attempt these myself…
My grandmother used to claim we were distantly related to some famous historical personalities like Ulysses S. Grant and Winston Churchill. I suspect she enjoyed her fables for the sake of story-telling, not because there was any truth in them
Oh wow, I have never had anything like this before, but it looks perfect! Yum!!
I actually am Norwegian, though not related to the royal family
I love that you made lefse! Lefse is used for celebrations like birthdays and stuff aswell as Christmas. But I think your ones look more like lompe, because they´re so small. Lompe is more commonly used for hotdog bread actually! We roll them around boiled or grilled hotdogs with ketchup and mustard. And also, you´re supposed to serve them cold and rolled up with the butter and the cinnamon-sugar inside. But thats not very photogenic, so I understand showing the butter on the outside..!
Oh my!! Love these…I want one now!
I love lefse!! A staple at my breakfast table during Christmas! I normally eat it with some butter and brown cheese (a sort of sweet caramel tasting goat cheese). My grandmother made the best lefser (pl.) – I wish I had the appropriate kitchen tools to make them too, although I might give this recipe a go! Astri’s comments above are spot on re lompe vs lefse and the butter and cinnamon inside, but your photos are stunning as usual!
These pancakes look delish Lorraine – a huge plate for me please. I don’t want to be a member of any royal family.
Yum! These look amazing. No wonder Mr NQN ate 18….I’d like to get my teeth into
some right now
My fiance eats like a captive too! It’s shameful but funny at the same time. Haha. Potato and Pancakes? I’m in heaven.
I have emailed these to myself so I’ll be sure to make them this weekend.
Please open a restaurant
x
some of my buddies from high school are still my closest friends!
meanwhile, these look amazing! i suspect it’s to do with the melted butter and cinnamon-sugar of it all.
butter and cinammon that’s for me !!pierre
Hi NQN
I love your blog!! Have you considered designing an app??
I would love a NQN app on my new iPad
Hi Angela-I would love to do one! I think I just need to find time to hire someone to do it and think about how to do it well
Thanks so much for reading! 
Oh I can’t wait!!
I work as the cook on a ship that services oil rigs and your blog inspires some mouth watering creations. So thank you, from the happy crew and the busy cook
These look great! A wonderfully improved twist on latkes, perfect for any time of the day but light and fluffy. Gorgeous, mouth watering photos for food be-fitting royalty x
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