Twelve Days of Irish Recipes: Jane's Potato Cakes
Written by Ciaran on Dec. 03, 2025 | 0 Comments
We're sharing one of our own recipes each day as part of our 12 Days of Christmas offers, inspired by that traditional carol and the funny Irish version, Christmas Countdown.
From Christmas morning breakfast through to after dinner drinks, the My Irish Jeweler team are sharing their recipes that make the season bright (and tasty).
Potato Cakes for breakfast on Christmas morning
We know, we know. Potatoes! We're walking stereotypes, right? Stereotypes are there for a reason, we suppose, and potatoes undoubtedly hold a special place in Irish culture. Gemma often says we should do an entire recipe series on potatoes. She even has a name for it: 50 Ways to Eat a Potato!
Gemma sent me this photo apropos of nothing the other day! She loves a spud!
Unfortunately, we will have to wait to see how we get on with Gemma's dream series, but until then, we have a straightforward potato recipe for you. There isn’t a child in Ireland who hasn’t happily gobbled down potato cakes, for breakfast certainly, but also lunch, dinner or tea.
Also known as potato bread, or farls, they are more like a pancake than anything else and are a great way to use up leftover spuds, which is probably the origin of the recipe to begin with! My own kids give this recipe their most glowing recommendation. They tell their mam it can even be eaten without any ketchup at all! High praise indeed.
On Christmas morning (and really any time we have leftover potatoes), we have them fried until crisp, topped with butter and served with eggs - all without any calls for ketchup! But you can serve it with bacon too, or a full fry-up if you fancy it.
This mix freezes really well, and once thawed, can be cooked as normal, so it could be made well ahead… though we have never had cause to hold any back! As I said, our kids are fans of this one. The other nice thing about this recipe is that once you keep the ratio around 4 parts potato to 1 part flour, you can make it in whatever quantity you like.
One caveat: if you are using leftover mash that has milk in it, you may need to add a little more flour to the mix and could probably do without the butter to get the right consistency.
Ingredients
- 480 g cooked and finely mashed potato - Jane uses roosters, but you can use whatever you have
- 120 g Plain white flour.
- A pinch of black pepper (you can leave this out if you like; it is not traditional and borders on notions, but it certainly does add a little extra to the end result!)
- A generous pinch or two of salt - any will do, but we love Achill Island Sea Salt in our house
- 60g butter – we use salted Irish butter and go easy on the added salt as a result. If you have unsalted butter, you can be more generous with your salt - taste as you go and season to your liking.
Method
- For raw potatoes, wash, peel, and boil until tender. Then drain and cover for at least 5 mins or so to cool and dry out before ricing/mashing
- If you have leftover cooked potatoes, you can skip straight to putting them through a ricer if you have one. They are very handy and get rid of all the lumps pretty easily. But you can also mash them the old-fashioned way! The finer the mash you can get, the better the end result - no lumps here!
- Add the salt, black pepper if you are using it, and butter to your mash and lightly work through with a fork - this might be trickier if your potato is cold, but it is worth doing well to get an even consistency.
- Add in the flour gradually, using that same fork to mix through the potato until it becomes too hard to mix.
- Gemma has asked me to do a PSA reminding you to remove any cherished bracelets or rings before this next step. Jewelry safely stored? Ok, now with clean hands, knead the mix a little to bring it together to form a soft dough.
- Tip the dough out onto a clean, lightly floured surface, and shape or gently roll it out into a disc, no bigger than your frying pan. The disc should be between ½ centimetre and 1 centimetre, or ¼ inch to just under ½ inch thick. It is not an exact science, but you don’t want it to be too thick or it won't cook through before burning!
- If you are cooking for a crowd and have upped the quantity, you might have to make a few discs here!
- Cut a cross through the doughy disc to make four equal quarters. Or, if you want to add mayhem to your Christmas morning, you can also get kids involved and use cookie cutters to make whatever shapes you like.
- Heat a flat, heavy frying pan on a medium-high heat.
- Cook the quarters in the pan for a few minutes on each side until they start to brown in patches - my youngest reckons these are leopard spots.
- Fight back the hungry hordes to allow them to cool slightly on a rack.
- Add a generous spread of butter and let it melt into the bread, then serve with whatever you fancy - eggs, scrambled or fried, are our preferred option, but you could be fancy with poached! Or you can throw them back in the pan for a quick reheat after you have fried up some bacon or sausages, if you are so inclined. Decadent, and certainly not the heart-healthy option… but it’s Christmas, so you can get away with it, right?
A few pieces of potato cake... Just before they were gobbled up!
Photo Credit: J. Chadwick
What's Next?
Check back in with us tomorrow for Day 4 of our Twelve Days of Irish Christmas, or open door number 3 of our 12 Days of Christmas offers! And, of course, if you need any help selecting a gift for yourself or a loved one, please do get in touch.
Get In Touch
Have a question or something you're not entirely sure about when browsing our pieces? Please reach out. You can send us a note or give us a call—the Dublin workshop is here to make sure that you have a perfect experience from start to finish with My Irish Jeweler.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, to see what's new and upcoming. Join our Email list for early offers and special features.
Ciaran
My Irish Jeweler
Born in Co. Antrim and reared in Dublin, I was fascinated with Gaelic culture from an early age. I suppose it's not surprising given my mother inherited a grá for the Irish language from my grandfather, an Irish school headmaster. And that grá continues! My brother and sister are now Gaelic teachers here in Ireland, my niece is an award winning Irish dancer, and I proudly work to share Irish culture through our Irish and Celtic Jewelry at My Irish Jeweler!
I love researching and reading about the history of Irish design. It's at the core of what we do here at My Irish Jeweler. I find much of it so interesting that I have to share what I find. I hope you enjoy it!
Comments
Ask Gemma
