My Potato Candy Experiment

I read about potato candy yesterday. I had never heard of it, but several blogs and message board posters described it as a delicious and frighteningly sweet childhood memory, so of course I had to give it a try. The ingredients are simple: a small boiled potato, as much confectioner's sugar as necessary (which is a lot), an optional dash of vanilla, and peanut butter. I had all those ingredients at the ready, so off I went.

First of all, one small potato did not sound like enough, so I boiled three. I let the boiled potatoes sit in a strainer while I made a double-batch of Rice Crispy Candy (more familiar territory), and when I returned to them, they had become cool and very dry. So as I mashed them with the new pastry blender HP gave me, I also added back a little hot water from the Insta Hot. Then I added a little bit more, plus a dash of vanilla flavoring. The potatoes became the consistency of mashed potatoes, so I started adding in the confectioners sugar. And adding and adding. The more I added, the bigger and wetter the mixture got. How is that? Since the goal was to add enough sugar to form a dough consistency that could be rolled out, I was clearly moving in the wrong direction. Now I understand about the one potato.

I reduced my "batter" to about one fourth of what i started with and resumed adding confectioners sugar. A LOT of sugar later, the dough began to form. Cool! I started thinking maybe I could make one of those cakes with the rolled icing and --wait!--stay on task! I made one sugar dough "log," rolled it flat with reasonable ease, then layered it with peanut butter. I rolled that up jelly-roll style and left it to sit and cure.

The second one I got really creative. I had two Hershey bars stashed away, so I chopped it up very fine and added it and some chopped pecans to the peanut butter.

The thing looked like hell but it was actually pretty delicious and SWEEEEET!