Crisp on the outside but fluffy in the center, these delicious little Potato & Egg Cakes are great as they are or served as part of a full breakfast. 

My Mum was definitely the cook in my house growing up making us all sorts of homemade meals which is where my love of cooking came from. But every once in a while, my Dad came up with a little gem. 

He didn’t cook very often, but as children always made the packed lunches for my sister and I. When he did cook though, he did like to have a little experiment. One of his go to recipes was cottage pie with the addition of baked beans which sounds pretty weird, but it was actually pretty tasty!

These Potato & Egg Cakes are another one of his creations, one that I have borrowed from him and make myself (I haven’t made the cottage pie with baked beans I’m afraid). He came up with the idea as a way of using up left over mashed potato when he lived by himself. I don’t know about you, but working out how many potatoes to peel to make the right amount of mashed potato isn’t as easy as it sounds! Because I would always rather have too much than too little and leave people hungry, I always seem to make a little bit too much. What better way to use up your leftover mash than turning it into a tasty brunch?! 

When I used to make these with Dad, we only added one egg and cooked it more as one large cake rather than the smaller ones. By using another egg, it helps bind the mixture better which makes it easier to make smaller cakes that don’t fall apart when you flip them. If you don’t leave them to cook for long enough on the first side, they may fall apart slightly when you do flip them over. This really isn’t a problem at all as it will still be tasty. 

Wherever possible, I like to get free range eggs from local farms because they always taste better in my opinion. My parent’s chickens aren’t laying eggs anymore so I do definitely miss my tasty egg supply. When I went on a girl’s weekend to the Cotswold’s recently, we went for a walk in the village we were staying in to search for the farm we were told sold eggs. We managed to find a little honesty box at the end of a drive and then realised we should have brought our own egg box! We must have looked a little bit strange walking long each carrying an egg back to the cottage! I used some of the delicious eggs to make these Potato & Egg Cakes when I got back home. 

I tend to eat these as they are but you could easily add them to a cooked breakfast; you may just want to make them a bit smaller. 

Serves 2 as a main breakfast 

400g mashed potato, cold
2 eggs
½ tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
2 tbsp sunflower oil 

1. Take the leftover mashed potato out of the fridge and break it up a bit using a fork 

2. Add the eggs, salt and pepper to the mashed potato and mix 

3. Heat some of the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat 
4. Spoon a large spoonful of the mixture into the pan and allow to spread out until the ‘cake’ is the same thickness all over

5. Allow to cook for around 4 minutes on each side until golden brown and then flip and cook for the same amount of time on the other side 
6. Keep cooking until all of the mix is used up. Don’t overcrowd the pan, and add more oil as needed 
7. Serve as they are or alongside some bacon or whatever takes your fancy!

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