THE FAMOUS POTATO CAKE
THE FAMOUS POTATO CAKE IS BACK BABY and is even bigger and better than before.
With it being my 30th birthday this January, I absolutely had to go to town on this bad boy and deliver the cake of my dreams. I legit did have vivid dreams about this too. There’s even an accompanying drawing – treat this as my ‘Great British Bake Off’ intro. You know that bit in the episode where theres a beautiful illustration of what the viewers can hopefully expect. I think this cake did my drawing justice tbh.
Now when I first debuted my potato cake back in 2021, the one question I kept getting was…”how does it stay warm?”and “are you genuinely eating a cold potato cake? That’s rank”. Hehe. So in answer to those…ok yeah, it was luke warm at best. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious but you had to eat it FAST. Fast forward to today and problem solved. If you’re one of the lucky ones to own an air fryer (obvs I’m a fan), simply serve up a slice and whack it in your air fryer for a mins to heat up. Keep it in slightly longer if you want it a lil crispy, then once out, douse in piping hot gravy for that je ne sais quoi!
If there’s a potato lover in your life, forget your Colin the Caterpillar or Asda spesh because this what you should be making. topped with a garlic and herb butter candle and served alongside a proper big jug of gravy. Sorry Mary Berry, you won’t find a hint of a Victoria sponge here.
But less about the eating, let’s get down to the making…
TIER 1
Start by smooshing a bit of mashed potato on your board/cake stand to keep your layers rooted to the spot. We don’t want any toppled cakes because that would be a catastrophe.
Next, place a giant rosti down and pipe a circle of mashed potato on top, adding a thin layer in the middle. Top the middle section with caramelised onion, crispy bacon bits and chives. You can add goats cheese here if you fancy. Then repeat for the next layer, albeit with a slightly smaller rosti.
Then top with a deliciously golden Pommes Anna. You can go for the original buttery classic or my confit garlic version if you’re feeling particularly faaaancy.
TIER 2
Like with tier 1, you’re going to start with a two rosti layers, but obviously make these gradually smaller. The only change I made here is to add some parmesan cheese within the mashed potato layer, but you could do this throughout. There’s legit no rules. Add a layer of fondant potatoes…a jenga topping of chunky chips…the extreme the better in my eyes.
Back to the cake. After your two rosti layers, you’ll place a final Pommes Anna layer, which I then topped with piped mashed potato, fried garlic crisps, chunky triple cooked chip candles and a big ole butter candle to make every element of this cake not only edible, but INCREDIBLE. To really finish it off, spinkle with more bacon, more chives and dig in babs x
Additions
If like me, you want to dedicate a full day to constructing this cake, here’s a few other ways to throw in some extra carbs…
Aligot – I LOVE aligot. It has similarities to mash but due to the addition of gooey, melty cheeses, the consistency is runnier and it has more stretch – making it a great addition if you want to create that ‘icing’ style look.
Crispy potato balls – If you’re all about those viral malteser cakes, recreate the look with these delicious and addictive crispy balls. I made them as part of my ’24 days of christmas potatoes’ series and kept finding excuses to make them again.
Potato smiles – Does this need any explaining? They just look super cute don’t they and absolutely belong on a birthday cake. They may be the saviour for a weeknight tea with the fam, but we need to utilise these babies more.