Warm, pillowy potato scones are the perfect snack or breakfast item. Whether you call them potato scones, potato cakes, potato farls, fadge or tattie scones; they're tasty and an excellent use for leftover mashed potato!
You'll be lucky if there is any leftover once your family tries them.
Potato Scone: A Scottish Breakfast Institution
In Scotland, we call them potato scones and we generally eat them for breakfast on a roll, on a full Scottish-style breakfast (obviously haggis is involved) or I love giving them as a tasty snack to my toddler and baby.
Although I’m giving you the recipe from ‘scratch’, you can absolutely use whatever leftovers you have. I generally make them whenever I have mashed potato leftover from the night before.
Suitable For The Whole Family
I feel comfortable giving potato scones to my kids from around 6 months old. The only element I would consider modifying in the salt content. And because they freeze well, you can make a batch, freeze and use as necessary for your baby or toddler.
Photo above of my baby (9 months old) enjoying her potato scones with goats cheese romesco sauce.
Ingredients
- Potato: I have only used approx. 250g of raw potato (1 peeled potato).
- Butter: I’m using Kerrygold salted butter, as I like to season from within.
- Cream: I use double cream (heavy cream), which is totally optional and not a necessary element.
- Flour: if you don't have self raising flour, you can use plain (all purpose) flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder instead.
- Pepper: using white pepper means your dough doesn't have little flecks of black pepper visible (purely aesthetic).
- Salt
I filled a whole Tupperware tub with this portion, which meant some went into my freezer too. So feel free to scale up or down as required, as they do freeze really well.
How To Make Scottish Potato Scones
Peel potato and cook in salted water until soft (enough that you can pass a knife through them), then mash (or rice) cooked potato until smooth.
Add salted butter and stir through then pour in double cream.
Add flour and white pepper and form into a ball of dough.
Roll out ball of dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes (triangle, square etc.), approx. ¾mm thick.
Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and wipe away the excess with kitchen paper. Fry the potato scones until golden brown - approx. ⅘mins on each side.
Video on How To Make Potato Scones
How To Make Potato Scones With Leftover Mash
Leftover Mash: as general guidance add approximately half the weight of the potato of flour to the mixture.
i.e. a ratio of 2:1 - weigh the mashed potato and add approx. half the weight of the potato in flour to the mixture.
- e.g. if you have 500g raw potato, use 250g SR flour
- OR if you have 100g raw potato, use 50g SR flour then gradually add a little extra flour if you think it needs it.
You're looking for the dough to be light and fluffy, but not sticky.
FAQs
Check out my featured video where you'll see the consistency of the dough once I add flour to it - this is what you're aiming for. And once you've made them a few times, you will build your confidence up.
No one makes their mashed potatoes the exact same every time - as potatoes comes in all shapes and sizes. So you'll have different volumes of butter, potato and cream/milk in each batch usually.
So unless you set out to make homemade potato scones from scratch, it's likely you'll be making them from leftover mash. Therefore, aiming for the right consistency is what's important.
Yes you can - add a little to the frying pan and wipe round the pan with kitchen paper to remove excess.
Yes - just add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the mix too.
You can substitute the SR flour for gluten free flour and add 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Absolutely - simply substitute full-cream butter for dairy-free or a plant alternative like Flora and dairy-free cream if desired (but this isn't an essential element).
Storage and Reheating
Once cooked, the potato scones will stay fresh in an airtight container for approx. 4 days.
Re-Heating: you can reheat in the oven or toaster for a few minutes.
Can you freeze potato scones?
Potato scones can easily be frozen; preferably once fully cooked. They will last approximately 3 months in the freezer in an airtight or sealed container (sealable sandwich bags are perfect).
I specifically state that you want to ensure they are fully cooked before freezing, as if you leave the mixture for any period of time without frying, they can go slightly grey looking.
Then when you take them out of the freezer and defrost them, just toast them to enjoy.
Other Scottish Recipes You Might Like
Whether it's your first time trying Scottish potato scones, or you're a tattie scone connoisseur, I hope you enjoy them.
Why not try some of my other Traditional Scottish recipes like:
If you have any other questions, or want to tell me what you think of my recipe, then please leave a comment or review below.
Scottish Potato Scones
Ingredients
- 270 g raw potato unpeeled weight
- 50 g salted butter
- 30 ml double cream
- 135 g self raising flour plus more for dusting and shaping
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper
Instructions
- Peel 270 g raw potato and cook in salted water until soft
- Mash (or rice) potato, then add 50 g salted butter and 30 ml double cream and stir through to combine
- Mix through 135 g self raising flour and ¼ teaspoon white pepper using your hands, and form into a ball of dough
- Roll out ball of dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shape, approx. ¾mm thick
- Fry in a knob of butter (ideally wipe off the excess with kitchen paper before cooking) or dry fry on a good non-stick pan – 4 minutes on each side until golden brown
Alison Robertson says
Made these for my little girls and they loved them! Had to sub in plant butter as one of my girls has dairy allergy and still worked well. Will be making with proper butter for myself soon! 😂
Lauren says
Thanks so much, so glad your girls loved them!
Tegan says
Delicious! Best potato scone recipe I've tried. Thank you for sharing this recipe! 😋
Lauren says
thanks so much for your comment, it's appreciated!
Marie says
So glad I found this recipe from Lauren as I live in Ireland and the tattie scones are nothing like the Scottish ones I was brought up with, however these are exactly like the real McCoy, have made them several times now, so thanks for sharing your amazing recipes always...
Jill Mackenzie says
Such an easy and perfect recipe for all the family to enjoy.