Dick's Hideaway

Dick MacKenzie - www.dickshideaway.com

Easy potato cupcakes

A few friends have asked for my potato cupcake recipe. I’m embarrassed to tell you that I can’t find it and can’t remember where I saw it. I will do my best to reconstruct my process and come up with a pretty good mix that you can tweak at will for your own delight.
When I came across the directions a few days ago I knew I’d remember the ingredients and measurements so declined to take further notice. When I was ready to start I forgot the exact amount of shredded potatoes, so poked around the freezer and came up with half a bag of the shredded ones. So I dumped those in a big bowl, wondering how much they weighed but not worrying because I had already forgotten what weight was called for.
Then came the sour cream and mayonnaise. I thought it was 4 tablespoons of one and 3 tablespoons of the other, but couldn’t remember which was which. Also questioned whether it was really tablespoons or teaspoons. The tablespoonsful seemed so intimidating. But I had already scooped 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise in so just went ahead and slopped in 3 tablespoons of 
sour cream.
Scrounging in the refrigerator vegetable drawer I found half, or so, of a bag of shredded cheddar cheese. Not wanting to put back only a small portion of cheese I dumped the entire contents of the half bag into my secret, by now, mix in the big bowl. Didn’t really matter how much it was. I couldn’t remember how much I was supposed to put in anyway, and I like cheddar.
I totally forgot what spices/herbs to add so just picked a few that seemed like they should work well. I shook salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika from the little bottles. By now I was singing and flinging like the Muppets’ Swedish Chef and had to refill my wine glass.
Once everything was stirred and mixed and I thought I was finished, my mixture seemed kind of sloppy. “Too much sour cream and mayonnaise,” I figured. (Note to self: “Guess it should have been teaspoons, not tablespoons. Remember that next time.”)
A quick rummaging through the downstairs freezer uncovered another partial bag of shredded potatoes. Hacked off a couple big chunks of the frozen potato iceberg and tossed them in. Still didn’t seem like enough so I gave in and tossed in the rest of the bag. A couple hours later the new additions had thawed enough to mix in.
“Eureka !! Looks perfect,” I shouted happily over another refill of the wine glass, although I had no idea what it should have looked like.
Quickly I sprayed the muffin pan with cooking oil, proud of myself for knowing not to use WD-40 this time. Cranked my trusty Broil King BBQ up to about 350 or 400 degrees, added a pan of my local chipped apple wood, and slipped in the muffin pan full of the potato cupcake mix that I had spooned into the little round compartments.
My thought was that 45 minutes was the recommended cooking time, but they didn’t seem quite ready then so I left them for a few minutes longer, then pulled them out and took some pictures.
So, there’s my recipe. Next time I would go easy on the sour cream and mayonnaise, might try parmesan instead of cheddar (the cheddar was good, though), I’d add lots more of the spices/herbs, and I’d incorporate some chopped onions.
You can google “shredded potato muffins” (okay, so I didn’t remember the exact name) for some variations. When I looked this morning I didn’t find any that included mayonnaise and sour cream, but I feel sure I remember them showing in the recipe that I can’t remember.