Duchess Potatoes

By LaLaCooks

For the smoothest, most uniform texture, use a food mill or ricer to mash the potatoes.

Rich and fluffy, its really the artful presentation that makes these potatoes stand out. We wanted to keep the sophisticated spirit of the country clubs and ocean-liners that popularized this dish, but keep it accessible to the everyday cook. Heres what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

Boiling the potatoes made them waterlogged. Next we tried baking them, but they quickly dried out. We solved this problem by parcooking the potatoes in the microwave and finishing them in the oven on high heat.
Piling butter into the hot potato mixture made it too soft to pipe into delicate mounds. Add some while its still hot, but wait to add the rest until it has cooled a bit. The result will be rich, buttery flavor throughout with small butter pockets scattered in the mounds.
To keep the airy texture, we found some unexpected help in our baking cabinet.

STEP BY STEP

Two Paths to Perfect Piping

With a pastry bag fitted with a star tip, making beautiful duchess potatoes is child's play. If you don't have a pastry bag, don't worry: There's another easy way.
WITH PASTRY BAG Start each portion by piping a 4-inch circle on the baking sheet. Continue to pipe upward circles until you've made a 3-inch peak.


WITHOUT PASTRY BAG Scoop the potatoes into a zipper-lock bag, snip off a corner, and pipe as directed. Use tines of a fork to create rippled edges.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds russet potatoes, scrubbed
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes and softened
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• Pinch nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from cookscountry.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. MICROWAVE POTATOES Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 475 degrees. Meanwhile, prick potatoes all over with fork, place on plate, and microwave until tender, 18 to 25 minutes, turning potatoes over after 10 minutes.

2. MASH POTATOES Cut potatoes in half. When cool enough to handle, scoop flesh into large bowl and mash until no lumps remain. Add cream, 3 tablespoons butter, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and baking powder and continue to mash until potatoes are smooth. Let cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes. Gently fold in remaining butter until pieces are evenly distributed.

3. PIPE AND BAKE Transfer potato mixture to piping bag fitted with -inch star tip. Pipe eight 4-inch-wide mounds of potato on rimmed baking sheet. Spray lightly with cooking spray and bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve.

MAKE AHEAD Once piped onto the baking sheet, the potatoes can be covered loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerated for 24 hours. Remove plastic and spray lightly with cooking spray before baking.