Help! I’ve entered a cake competition in a foreign land

[alwaysonthepiste]

The recipe is «Petatou». All entrants making the same but I’d really love to zhuzh mine. Any ideas please?

Is that the French goat cheese topped mashed potato dish?

But petatou isn’t a cake…?

And is your version with or without pastry?

😂😂😂

It isn't really a cake is it, more a bake? It sounds horrible to me as I loathe goats cheese.

Oh so sorry. I thought no one was interested.
It is the goats cheese with potato and pastry.

Looking at the recipe, it is more of a tart and it has sugar and vanilla in it, so I'm assuming dessert. The potato doesn't go on top but is mixed in with as part of the filling. Very weird.

There's a Swedish dense sponge cake made with cold, mashed potatoes flavoured with bitter almonds. As a Swede my first instinct was to flavour with that, or cardamom.

It’s definitely not a dessert! It’s pretty much a substantial warm potato salad in vinaigrette packed into baking rings or pastry crusts then topped with goats cheese mixed with cream and baked. I’ve never seen sugar or vanilla added. Where is your recipe from?

Are you maybe doing a Rachel from friends and getting hour trifle recipe mixed up? 😂

Is someone taking the piss out of the foreigner with the vanilla and sugar thing?

@banivani

There's a Swedish dense sponge cake made with cold, mashed potatoes flavoured with bitter almonds. As a Swede my first instinct was to flavour with that, or cardamom.

Bitter almonds isn't really a flavour that I like, but cardamom sounds interesting.

@TheSpottedZebra

Is someone taking the piss out of the foreigner with the vanilla and sugar thing?

No really, this is the recipe www.lespetitsgateaux.fr/fiche/petatou/

That seems as if someone is using the name ‘petatou’ (which is an old doors for potato) for something that is pretty much an entirely different dish, a sweet/salty cheesecake that uses potatoes and goat’s cheese like the traditional dish, but to a completely different effect.

The one I’m used to is pretty much a potato part, with or without a pastry crust, topped with goats cheese and baked.

I took a look at the recipe, and it is nothing like the petatou I know of - one which is a vinagered mashed potato with goat cheese topping and the other which is the former in a pastry case.

This version looks like a version of cheesecake with mashed potato in it. Very, um...unusual.

Having a quick look around, the closest thing to palatable I could find to this "petatou" is a sweet potato cheesecake. Your recipe does not specify the type of cheese or potato, so I'd swap out the potato for sweet potato (more flavour and goes better with sweet), add spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, allspice and use cream cheese for the cheese. I'd also adapt the pastry to add spices to that to boost the flavour.

No idea but goats cheese, mash, and pastry sounds bloody lush.

I'm going to try and make this, I'd never heard of it, any clever person know what cottage cheese like goats cheese is?

@Mominatrix

Having a quick look around, the closest thing to palatable I could find to this "petatou" is a sweet potato cheesecake. Your recipe does not specify the type of cheese or potato, so I'd swap out the potato for sweet potato (more flavour and goes better with sweet), add spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, allspice and use cream cheese for the cheese. I'd also adapt the pastry to add spices to that to boost the flavour.

I will definitely try your sweet potato, cream cheese and spices version, as it sounds delicious but think it might be bending the rules too far for the competition. I was thinking that I'd make sweet pastry with egg yolks and sneak some additional flavour in, like orange zest? I don't want to diss the local's recipe but enhance it for the better

Have you been given that specific recipe? Ie is it some kind of local speciality? The patissier that's mentioned I the recipe, sounds like he's zhuzhed up petatou plenty already!

In which case, yes I'd go gently with some orange zest and/or thyme, or honey instead of sugar.