Pommes Anna
Crisp layered potato cake baked in butter.
Ingredients
- 800 g Potatoes
- 100 g Butter
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Thyme (optional)
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F).
- While the oven heats, slice the potatoes paper-thin (a mandoline is ideal).
- Layer the potatoes in a buttered pan, brushing each layer with butter and scattering over the thyme and salt as you go.
- Bake until tender within and crisp and golden, about 35 minutes.
- Invert and cut into wedges to serve.
Tap “Start cooking” for live timers that flag what to get ahead on while something simmers.
About Pommes Anna
Pommes Anna is a classic of French haute cuisine, a potato cake said to date to the grand restaurants of nineteenth-century Paris and named for a fashionable woman of the era. It is potatoes and butter and little else, transformed by technique into something far greater than the sum of its parts: paper-thin slices layered in a heavily buttered pan and baked until the whole thing sets into a single golden cake. The defining move is slicing the potatoes uniformly thin — a mandoline earns its keep here — so the layers fuse and crisp evenly.
Baked at high heat, the outside turns deeply crisp and burnished while the interior stays meltingly tender, each layer basted in butter and scented with thyme. Inverting the cake to reveal the crackling top and cutting it into wedges is part of the ritual, and part of why it looks so impressive for so few ingredients. It's a side dish with real occasion to it, at home next to a roast, a steak, or a simple roast chicken for a special dinner. Crisp, buttery, and rich, it's proof of how much the French kitchen can wring from the humble potato.
Pommes Anna: frequently asked questions
How many calories are in Pommes Anna?
A serving has about 335 calories — 4.4g protein, 35.3g carbs, 20.5g fat, 4.4g fiber. Figures are estimated from the ingredient amounts and will shift with your portions and brands.
Is Pommes Anna gluten-free?
Based on its ingredients, Pommes Anna has no gluten-containing components, so it's naturally gluten-free — as always, check that any packaged ingredients you use are certified gluten-free to be safe.
Is Pommes Anna dairy-free?
Not as written — it uses Butter. Swapping it for a plant-based alternative makes it dairy-free.
How long does Pommes Anna take to make?
About 55 minutes start to finish, but only around 19 of those are hands-on — the rest is largely unattended cooking time you can step away from. In the Homecooked app the timers and parallel steps are sequenced for you so the hands-on part feels even shorter.
Do I need every ingredient to make Pommes Anna?
The core ingredients are essential, but you can leave out thyme — it's optional and mainly there for extra flavor or finish.
How many servings does Pommes Anna make?
This recipe makes 4 servings. In the app you can scale it up or down and the ingredient amounts adjust automatically.