Flour and baking
Flour has always been important for baking and for how people eat. In ancient times, people made simple breads with coarse, stone-ground flour. As milling became better, flour got finer and baking recipes became more varied and tasty. These changes helped create many traditions and celebrations where bread and baked goods were a special part of the meal. (Notaker, 2009)
Flatbreads, like Norwegian lefse, have been made for hundreds of years and are some of the oldest types of bread in the world. They were first baked on hot stones or griddles and made from whatever grains people had, such as barley, rye, or wheat. Lefse, in particular, became popular in Scandinavia because it was easy to cook, could be stored for a long time, and was perfect for cold winters. (Notaker, 2009)
The second baked good presented in this blog post is "Ferraduras" or "Horseshoes" if we go with the literal translation. These are traditional Portuguese pastries. I don't think it's a pastry made for a specific festivity; however, my mother likes to occasionally bake them at home because it's something her grandmother used to make for her as a child. When we were asked to bake something traditional from our own country, that was the first thing I thought about, and I immediately asked my mother for the recipe. It might not be the exact same recipe my great-grandmother used to make, but it sure tastes great!
Lærdalskling (Sognelefse, Kling)
Note: For this Lefse, we used the dough that was made in the last practical session and had been started by the Norwegian students; therefore, I don't have any pictures of the dough-making process.
Note 2: Because the instructions given in class were a little vague and it is a little complicated to know what was actually done when one wasn't there to see it, I will add the instructions of the Scandinavian Cookbook blog (Silvia, 2023)
Ingredients (Kari, 2025)
- 250g butter
- 1L whole milk
- wheat flour
- 1 cup of semolina
- egg mixture: 15 eggs and 3dl of whole milk
Preparation:
To start making the Lefse, you should add butter, milk, and semolina into a saucepan on low heat to melt them all together. Once it's done, you can take the semolina porridge off the heat and start slowly adding the flower to the mixture in a different bowl.
"When adding the flour to the semolina porridge the goal is to add as little flour as possible without the dough being too sticky to roll out. I don’t add the full amount of flour in the recipe, and instead keep the dough on the slightly sticky side. Then I add more flour as I roll out the lefse." (Silvia, 2023)
Once the dough is soft and ready (hard to stir), you can divide it into smaller pieces, roll each piece out on the table on which you've spread some flour so it doesn't stick. First, you should use a normal rolling pin to flatten the pieces into a circle. Before the dough gets too thin, you can switch to a corrugated rolling pin.
Rolling out the dough / ©Rita Lima
Lefse baking / ©Rita Lima
We let the lefse bake on one side before adding the egg mixture (eggs and milk) on top of the opposite side, and later letting it bake more on the same already baked side.
Adding the egg mixture to the lefse / ©Ririko Sugi
As the lefser were done baking, we would stack them on top of each other with a layer of cloth between as well as spray each cloth layer with water to soften them.
Spraying the lefse / ©Ririko Sugi, Rita Lima
We didn't add anything on the inside except the egg mixture, so the last step of this process was to fold the lefser into rectangles by folding each side inwards.
"Ferraduras" - Horseshoes (literal translation)
Ingredients
- 300g whole wheat flour
- 125g of cane sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp of cinnamon
- 2 tsp of anise seeds
- lemon zest
- 125ml olive oil
- 3 M-sized eggs
- 1 egg yolk
Note: If you use XL-sized eggs, you should 350g of flour)
Preparation:
The preparation of these biscuits started with the gathering of the ingredients. After doing so, I added all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, anise, and lemon zest, to a bowl first. Before mixing everything together, I heated up the olive oil for a few seconds in the microwave and added it to the dry ingredients. After making sure the olive oil is well mixed into the dry ingredients, I added the three eggs.
Disclaimer: When mixing the eggs, it is important to not mix them too much; they should just be well incorporated into the dough. If mixed too much, the biscuits may become hard after baking. (Clara de Sousa, 2022)
Shaping:
Before starting the shaping process, I let the dough rest for a few minutes to cool.
Meanwhile, I prepared the egg yolk mixture that will be used later to coat the biscuits before baking. I took the last egg and separated the egg white from the yolk in different bowls. I added a little bit of milk to the egg yolk, but you can also add water.
Once the dough has cooled, we can start shaping!
This part is really simple; you just take about 70g of dough, roll it, and then fold it into a horseshoe shape.
Disclaimer 2: If the dough is still sticky and sticks to your hands a lot when you try to shape the biscuits, you can either add a little more flour (not too much!!) or you can grease your hands with olive oil.
After this, you can coat the horseshoe-shaped biscuits with the egg yolk mixture, and they're ready to go in the oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes!
Sources:
Clara de Sousa. (2022, March 31). Receita de Ferraduras integrais com canela e erva-doce - Clara de Sousa. Clara De Sousa. https://claradesousa.pt/receita/ferraduras-integrais-com-canela-e-erva-doce/
Silvia. (2023, February 28). Lefse (Kling) from Telemark. Scandinavian Cookbook. https://scandinaviancookbook.com/lefse-kling-from-telemark/#recipe
Notaker, H. (2009). Food culture in Scandinavia. Greenwood Press.
Comments
Post a Comment