Peanut butter, confectioner’s sugar, and a mashed potato. That’s all you need for this delicious Old-Fashioned Potato Candy.
Potato candy is also known as Depression Candy. It was one of many recipes with inexpensive substitutions that homemakers came up with during those tough times.
It is difficult to find written documentation or early cookbooks on the history of potato candy. Most people that remember this candy as a child recall the recipe being passed down from Grandparents and Great Grandparents of German or Irish descent. Many believe the recipe to be introduced by the Pennsylvania Dutch. A common frugal German practice was to find delicious food uses for leftover potatoes. Since potatoes were introduced to the new world from European immigrants coming from the northern regions such as Germany, France, Ireland, Russia or Scandinavia, it makes sense the potato candy originated in European countries where potatoes were a popular food staple. What’s Cooking America
If you’re making candies for the holidays, give this rich, fudge-like candy a try. I first had it in Maysville on a day trip to northern Kentucky. Yum!
Here are a few versions of the recipe that I thought looked pretty good:
- Old Fashioned Potato Candy at Christy Jordan’s Southern Plate
- Old-Fashioned Mashed Potato Candy at What’s Cooking America
- Potato Candy at Friends Drift Inn: Recipes, Gardening and Hot Flashes
- Old Fashioned Potato Candy at Wenderly: Savoring the Art of Living
- Easy Potato Candy at Cincinnati Family
- Potato Candy Roll at New England Today
If you’d rather skip making your own potato candy, you might want to check out Grandma’s Old Fashion Potato Candy in Augusta, Kentucky. It’s available at Pickers & Peddlers located on Main Street in Historic Augusta for $5 a tub. (Some Augusta trivia: Augusta was Rosemary Clooney’s hometown.)
Kentucky Day Trips 
My grandpa in Walhalla, S.C. was German, grandma was English. When I was around 6 years old my uncle Troy was in High School and signed up to take Home Ec. the only boy. He brought home some of this potato candy which I thought was delicious. This was around 1945. I am glad to see this recipe. I remember grandma making a big batch for us kids to have for treats. Since we were on a big farm, always had lots of potatoes.
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Thanks for sharing those memories, Karen. I love learning about the history of recipes like this one. I’m originally from Kansas and have a very vague memory of my Mom making potato candy. We were a farm family, too, so always plenty of potatoes.
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