These duchess potatoes have soft and buttery mashed potato insides, crispy golden edges, and are a delicious make ahead side.

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What are Duchess Potatoes?
Duchess potatoes are piped mashed potato, enriched with an egg yolk. They are then baked in the oven until golden. Soft and pillowy on the inside, and crispy crunch edges. They are a potato lovers heaven!
The egg yolks help firm them up, and if you use free range eggs, they make them a wonderful golden colour too!
Why you’ll love this recipe
- These potatoes can be made ahead
- It’s great recipe for using up egg yolks
- You can make them with leftover mashed potatoes
- They freeze really well
FAQ
If you are in Australia: Sebago are great for mashed potato.
In the UK: Maris Piper, Desiree, King Edward are UK varieties that all produce soft and fluffy mashed potato.
In the US: Yukon Gold or Russets.
To get rid of any lumps. This is an extra step but really worth it in this dish as lumpy mash will be harder to pipe.
No. You can brush with melted butter. I’ve tried both and as you can see from the pictures below, they look similar.
Serving suggestions for these piped potatoes
- Any roast dinner: beef, lamb, chicken
- Poached or roast salmon
- Stews, such as this chickpea and chorizo stew
- Alongside a creamy smoked salmon dip for dunking in!
My Tips for Success
- Rice the potatoes to remove any lumps, otherwise piping may be difficult (I thought i’d omit this step and my piping bag broke!). If you don’t have a potato ricer, push the potatoes through a sieve.
- Glazing the potato/egg wash. I have tried both methods, and to be completely honest there wasn’t that much difference:
- Egg Yolk: the duchess potatoes are shinier when cooked, the taste is slightly eggier (no surprise there!)
- Melted butter: Still goes golden and crisp, but less shiny. Has a slightly richer taste.
- If you don’t want to pipe duchess potatoes you can place spoonfuls of the mashed potato on your baking sheets and bake.
You can also spoon the mixture into an ovenproof dish, spreading it out evenly and then fluffing the top with a fork to become golden when cooking. My mum used to do this for large parties when she was working as a way of making the potato dish weeks beforehand.
Recipes for Leftover Egg whites
- These Italian Almond biscuits use 2 egg whites.
- Peach Melba Almond Meringue Gateau and German cinnamon star biscuits use 3 egg whites if you decided to scale the recipe.
More Delicious Recipes for Easy Side Dishes
Duchess Potatoes
Author: Robyn
Ingredients
- 800g (28oz) potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks ($1.80 / £0.36p)
- 35g (⅛ c) butter ($0.46 / £0.25p)
- pinch nutmeg ($0.02 / £0.01p)
- salt ($0.01 / £0.01p)
- 2 egg yolks ($0.70 / £0.36)*
- melted butter or egg yolk to glaze, optional
Instructions
- Cook the potatoes in boiling water for 15-18 minutes until tender.
- Drain and return to the pan.
- If cooking straight away, preheat the oven to 200˚C fan /220˚C / 392˚F convection / 425˚F
- Line two baking trays with baking parchment
- Return the pan to the heat and cook for 1 minute, to evaporate any moisture, shaking the pan every so often.
- Stir in the butter, nutmeg and season, then mash.
- Pass the mashed potato through a sieve, using the back of a spoon to push it through.
- Let the mixture cool for a few minutes then stir in the egg yolks, then place in a piping bag fitted with a 2 cm/ ¾" star nozzle.
- Tip: place a tiny amount of mashed potato in the 4 corners of your tin, between the tin and baking paper, this will stop the baking paper from moving when you pipe on it.
- Pipe 26-28 walnut sized mounds onto the trays (like icing a cupcake).
- Gently brush each mound with either a beaten egg yolk or a little melted butter.
- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, turning the trays around after 10 minutes, until golden.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
HAVE YOU MADE THIS RECIPE?
I’d love to see your creation!
Or just leave a comment below!
Alex says
These are the BEST Duchess Potatoes!
I love that they can be made ahead, and they have the best texture – the crispy edges and creamy centre are SO good.
Robyn says
So happy to hear this Alex! 🙂 Those crispy edges are soo good!