Candies for Everyone

Potato Candy

Ingredients

1/2 cup mashed potatoes, cooled to room temperature

2 tablespoons salted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6-8 cups powdered sugar plus extra for dusting

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

• Place the cooled mashed potatoes into a large bowl. Add the butter and beat with an electric hand mixer until smooth. Add the vanilla and stir in until combined.
• Slowly add in the powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, fully mixing in the first cup before adding the next. How much you use depends on how watery your mashed potato is as well as humidity, etc.
• You want the consistency to be like cookie dough that you can roll out. When you put a little bit in your fingers you should be able to press and mold it together.
• In this step, you have to work pretty quickly because it can dry out. Layout a large piece of wax or parchment paper, dust it generously with powdered sugar. Place the potato mixture on the paper, add a generous amount of powdered sugar on top.
• Roll it out to ¼ inch thick. Try to get this into a rectangle shape as well as you can.
• Smear the peanut butter all over the top leaving a half-inch border. 
• Tightly roll into a long log. Place on a piece of plastic wrap and roll the log up and tuck the ends under. 
• Place in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to set. Unwrap on a cutting board and cut into ¼-½ inch slices to serve. 

• Notes

  • Do not use instant potatoes for this recipe, they are too watery.
  • You can prepare your potato any way you like, we microwave ours.
  • Creamy peanut butter is best but crunchy can be used as long as when it is spread you don’t tear or poke holes in the potato mixture.
  • If you don’t have salted butter unsalted can be used, just add a bit of salt along with it.
  • Like many recipes that have changed over time, it is hard to pinpoint exactly where it started. It is believed that this candy evolved from a recipe that was brought to America by German immigrants.