Mashed Potato Cakes

Here is my first ever post participating in the Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by Mom's Crazy Cooking. I can't wait to see all the tasty recipes linked up! This month's theme is mashed potatoes - must be potatoes and must be mashed.

I was excited to try this recipe I came across for Mashed Potato Pancakes on How Sweet It Is. This recipe is really quite simple, but boy is it yummy. These would really work for breakfast, lunch, after school snack or dinner.

You will need:

about 2 cups mashed potatoes
about 3 tablespoons flour
olive oil

I only ended up using 2 of these massive Russet potatoes for my mashed potatoes, which was more than 2 cups.

That is all you need for the basic mashed tater cakes. Make your best mashed potato recipe ever. Then add the 3 tablespoons flour to 2 cups of mashed potatoes.

I'm still searching for a delicious mashed potato recipe and am confident I will find it through all the awesome links for this month's Crazy Cooking Challenge listed below.

I love bacon and cheese with my mashed potatoes, so those were my two extra mix-ins. Feel free to add whatever else you wish. (Think baked potato toppings.) Here's how much I added to the 2 cups mashed potatoes with flour mixture.

4 slices bacon, cooked and broken into pieces
1/3 cup cheddar cheese, shredded 
sour cream, a dollop or two to taste

Now you are ready to make your mashed potato cake "patties." Anywhere from a 1/2" thick to 1" thick should work fine.

Heat your skillet to a medium high heat and as my favorite line in Jessica's recipie says, "Add your fat of choice [being bacon grease, butter or oil] and let it heat for 30 seconds." Her mom used bacon grease, which is doable if you plan on adding bacon. As contradicting as it sounds since these are not really healthy in any way, I chose to use olive oil as a healthier alternative to fry the tater cakes in.

Add a patty to the skillet. Be very careful of splattering whatever-type-of-fat you chose. Let brown, flipping after 3-4 minutes on each side.

I found that 2 cups of mashed potatoes will make between 10-12 hand sized mashed potato cakes. This was more than enough for my sister and I, as these were our side dish to chicken and we ended up having leftovers. I can vouch that they still taste good warmed up the next day!

These really are a fun twist on regular old mashed potatoes, giving them a nice crispy crunch with a soft middle. Definitely a good combo.

If you are interested in joining the Crazy Cooking Challenge, here are a few details: must make monthly themed food, posting once a month on the 7th and must use a recipe found on another blog (point being to highlight other bloggers). Please visit Mom's Crazy Cooking for more information. She is extremely thorough and helpful in how she runs this challenge. Thanks so much for hosting Tina! I'm excited to be a part of this!

Make sure to go check out some of the other mashed potato recipes linked up to the challenge! I'm already excited for December's Challenge: fudge. I am pretty sure I have already found my recipe and can't wait to try it out. Oh, and vote for this recipe by clicking the tiny "Like" under entry 59 below!