Yes, like in the movie Ratatouille, the recipe so good it makes the evil food critic cry tears of joy.
I swear this stuff has magical properties but ANYWAY. I’m not about to be that person with the 8 paragraph personal essay before the recipe so here it is
4-6 cloves garlic 1 onion olive oil 1 28oz can crushed or petite diced tomatoes fresh basil and parsley. Like 1/3 of a cup each? 1 eggplant 1-2 zucchini 1-2 yellow squash 5-6 roma tomatoes salt and pepper
1. Get food. Tricky part: make sure the eggplant, zucchini, squash and tomatoes are all roughly the same thiccness.
I finally figured it out: for a 10″ cast iron pan, you want 8-10″ apiece of each kind of tube veggie.
2. chop veggies. This is a fun recipe to make if you like to stab things a lot. Slice the tube veggies as thinly as you can. I can reliably do about 1/8th inch.
3. Preheat oven to 350 and put your pan over medium heat. If you have dried herbes de provence, throw 1-2 tablespoons in the pan and let them toast until you can smell them. If not don’t worry about it.
I put in extra lavender just ‘cause I could.
4. Add 1-2 tablespoons olive oil and plenty of garlic. Never let some catfish tell you how much garlic is too much. Feel it in your heart.
Anyway let that saute for about 2 minutes.
5. Add onions and saute until translucent, about 8 minutes.
6. Add the crushed tomatoes, half the parsley and basil, 1-2 tsp black pepper and a pinch of salt. Let that simmer for, I don’t know, 5-10 minutes?
7. While that’s happening, mix like ¼ cup of olive oil with another teaspoon of garlic, black pepper, salt, and the rest of the parsley and basil. Set that aside.
8. Turn off the stove burner and start putting the veggies in the pan. Don’t know if it matters but I usually alternate soft with hard, so I do eggplant-zucchini-tomato-yellow squash.
Keep doing that
I usually do a ring of veggies around the outside of the pan and then fill in the center however works. Most versions of this recipe lay the veggies down on top of the sauce. I’ve always stuck them straight up and down in the pan. Is this better? Who knows, man.
Ratatouille ready to go in the oven
9. Bake for about an hour and 15 minutes. It’s done when the zucchini and squash in the center are fork tender.
10. Spoon the olive oil/herb/garlic sauce over the top while it’s bubbling hot
Ways to stretch it out: Ratatouille is awesome on top of pasta. I usually get 4 meals out of one pan like this. Also, you will have leftover tube veg. I buy frozen pizza crusts and throw the veggies on top with some pizza sauce or olive oil, seasonings, and some goat cheese crumbles or mozzarella.
Anyway, that’s my current “happy place” recipe. It’s never cost me more than $10 in raw materials to make (including fresh herbs and bourgie canned tomatoes!) and is always a crowd-pleaser.
I showed this tiktok to my grandma to make her laugh, but now she’s all excited and actually wants to make a chocolate potato cake. We’re gonna do it.
I’ll keep everyone posted.
It’s happening, folks!
Looks good, but we’re not done yet!
Our sweet, sweet child needs to cool before we add the finishing touches!
My creation is complete!
After dinner, we’ll give it a taste test!
I wonder how it’ll taste.
Oh…
My…
God.
It’s incredible!
This stupid cake, made with potatoes … is delicious! It’s so sweet, moist, and decadent, just like a brownie! And I don’t even like chocolate or potatoes!
The recipe from the tiktok was pretty much impossible to find. I looked high and low, but everyone posted recipes that I KNOW he didn’t use because the ingredients and methods were different. After some searching, my grandma and I came up with our own recipe.
For the Cake:
1 cup mashed potato
2 cups sour cream
1 ¾ cup flour
1 ¾ cup sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch of salt
For the Drizzle:
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp corn syrup
2 tbsp water
A lot of recipes called for a mixer or a processor, but my grandma and I wanted to make an every-man kind of recipe, since we know not everyone has those things. Plus they’re heavy and a pain to clean anyway, so bowls it is!
Instructions:
1. Peel and boil the potato, then mash it. Set aside to cool. Go to the bathroom, do your homework, then come back. That should be enough time.
2. Set oven to 350°F.
3. Cream butter. This means putting the sugar and butter into a bowl and mashing it together with a fork until it’s thoroughly mixed.
3. Put everything else in the same bowl, including the mashed potato. Mix and stir well. Work those muscles!
4. Grease a pan (doesn’t matter what kind you use) and spatula batter into pan. Even out if necessary.
5. Bake in oven for 40 minutes.
6. Test cake with pick. If nothing sticks, it’s finished. If batter does stick to pick, let it bake a bit longer but make sure it doesn’t burn. Remove and set aside to cool.
For the Drizzle:
1. Cut chocolate into tiny squares.
2. In a small pot, mix sugar, corn syrup, and water.
3. On medium heat, wait for mixture to sizzle and stir it. Do NOT let it boil.
4. Remove from element and add chocolate.
5. Wait for squares to melt, then mix.
6. Drizzle or pour over cake.
Enjoy!
I’m so glad there’s a recipe now, I really want to try this!
Hey here is a thing that happened. We went for a simple ganache for the glaze. Heated 1 cup of cream till hot then poured over 1 cup of semisweet and 1 cup of milk chocolate chips. Whisk untill melted and pour over your chocolate mash potato cake
Found the original recipe! (Apparently it was listed as a caramel potato cake in the original recipe book??? Anyway, now there’s two CPC recipes!)
Chocolate Potato Cake
½ cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 eggs ½ cup milk ½ cup hot riced
potatoes [just pure potato, mashed, no milk or butter or pepper or salt or whatever, just pure mashed potato] 1 cup flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp clove ½ tsp nutmeg ½ cup grated chocolate ½ cup chopped nut
meats [optional, never ever feel pressured to add nuts to your
chocolate cake, our guy here didn’t!]
Just… put everything into the mixing bowl in that order, with lots of mixing in between each addition.
Into a greased and/or lined tin, and then into a moderate oven for 55 minutes (or until cooked).
Frosting
2 Tbs butter 1 cup sugar ¼ cup milk 1 square unsweetened
chocolate ½ tsp vanilla [also optional, since again, not mentioned by our maker here!]
Boil, but be careful it doesn’t burn. …Basically? Stir constantly! (also, apparently the vanilla only gets added after the mix is taken off the heat…)
