If you’ve never tasted potato candy before, you don’t know what you’re missing. No, it doesn’t taste like potatoes. It tastes like peanut butter candy, actually. It’s so fun to make it, too! You get to play with mashed potatoes and powdered sugar and watch the magic of the powdered sugar turning the potatoes into a liquid! Then you keep adding the sugar until you have a dough. After that, you roll it out and spread peanut butter on it, then roll it up into a log. Then you chill it and slice it.

If you like peanut butter, you’ll like this candy. I think it tastes better than peanut butter fudge. You would think that all that sugar would make the dough taste sweeter than it does. Yet, some kind of chemical reaction must occur when the potatoes meet the sugar, rendering the taste and texture unique and not overly sweet.

I have made it several years in a row every Christmas. My husband got me into it. It was a Christmas tradition for him. His parents are from the south, and according to my online research, it is a southern recipe with roots reaching back to Ireland. Many Irish immigrants settled in the South. There are other variations on this candy that don’t use peanut butter. Some variations make the candy look like miniature potatoes.

The recipe I use is very simple, calling for just three ingredients: potatoes of the small, round, white variety; powdered sugar; and peanut butter. I have searched high and low on the web trying to find a recipe that will improve upon this, but it’s always the same simple recipe. Sometimes it has vanilla; sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it has a little bit of butter in it. Other than that, there are very few variations. I can’t help but wish to improve it, after making it the same way, several years in a row now.

This is the recipe that I use:

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon mashed potatoes
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 jar (12 ounces) smooth peanut butter

PREPARATION:
Grease a 10×15x1-inch jelly roll pan; line with waxed paper and lightly butter the waxed paper. Placed mashed potatoes in a mixing bowl. Add the powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add more or less, just until the dough is very thick yet spreadable. Spread mixture into the prepared pan. Chill for 20 minutes. Spread peanut butter over the potato dough layer. Roll as for a jelly roll.

Cut into 1/2-inch slices. Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator.

I think it would be hard to improve upon this recipe without adding something to the peanut butter. I have tasted Amish peanut butter jelly that mixes peanut butter with marshmallow cream and corn syrup, but I did not like it. I found it too sticky and not peanut buttery enough. I prefer the creamy texture of peanut butter. Maybe there is just no improving upon peanut butter. Maybe that’s why the potato candy recipe is so simple with so few variations.

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