Traditional Scottish recipe for potato scones, or as they’re better known as in Scotland, tattie scones.
Originally published in November 2021. Updated in May 2023.
Let me be honest here. This is a recipe I have made time and time again, with the intention of sharing it here on Baking with Granny. But every time I make some Tattie Scones I face the same issue… I eat them all before I get a chance to photograph them!
Let me be honest again. The only reason these ones actually got photographed was because Granny was present and apparently has more self control than me!
And for those readers who aren’t fluent in Scottish dialect and have never heard of a Tattie Scone, let me explain…
The word “tattie”, translated to English is “potato”, so you might hear these also being called Potato Scones. These are a type of gridle scone that is made using potatoes (aka. tatties) and are generally served alongside sausages, bacon, eggs, black pudding and tomatoes, as part of cooked breakfast (aka. a “fry-up”).
You might also hear them called Tottie Scones, but that’s more down to regional dialect and pronunciation, and it means the same.
You will find them in any Scottish supermarket, in the bread aisle, usually a half-circle shape but sometimes in little individual circles too. The shop-bought ones are what we all know and love. Dense, potato-y, with a bit of a chew to them; ready to be fried in the pan, alongside your other breakfast items, soaking up their flavours too. There are some folk who enjoy a Tattie Scone in a morning roll with their meat/eggs and sauce but who am I to judge?!
However once you make a batch of these fresh and from scratch, you’ll enter a whole new world of Tattie Scone enjoyment – hot from the pan, smothered in butter… No fry-up even necessary to enjoy them! That’s because home made is most definitely the best when it comes to a Tattie Scone.
Oh, and did I mention they are super easy to make?
What are Tattie Scones?
Despite being called Tattie Scones, they aren’t really a scone. Or, at least, not the familiar sense that we all know and love. Tattie Scones are in fact a savoury snack, made with potatoes, some flour and butter. They are fried until golden and usually served as part of a breakfast. Traditionally they would be made with leftovers potatoes. The don’t have a particularly strong taste to them, meaning they can be enjoyed alongside a variety of options.
How do you make Tattie Scones?
Tattie Scones are incredibly easy to make. With only a handful of ingredients, the most difficult part is mashing the potatoes! Once you’ve got your potatoes mashed, you simply mix them with a bit of flour and butter (or margarine). And that’s your tattie scone dough, ready to go. It’s then a case of rolling & shaping them, before frying to finish.
Ingredients:
Potatoes
For the perfect Tattie Scones you need a good floury potato – waxy potatoes have no place in this recipe. You can of course use left over mashed potato too, just be sure to adjust your seasoning if you have already seasoned your mash potatoes.
Self-raising Flour
When it comes to flour, plain will suffice if it’s all you have but self-raising is preferable, as it will give your potato scones a little left as they cook. We’re not looking for cake-like Tattie Scones, just a little rise as the heat goes through them, otherwise they may be a little dense in terms of texture.
And be prepared with a little extra flour close to hand. Much like when it comes to making Macaroons, every potato is different, so the water content from one bag of potatoes to the next can vary; so sometimes a little more/less flour is required.
Butter or Margarine
It’s personal preference but I opt for margarine as to omit any dairy from this recipe. Again, just watch your seasoning if you are using a butter/margarine that is salted.
(Optional) Cheese
Not the most traditional but so, so tasty! Once you add some finely grated cheese to your tattie scones, you won’t go back. Cheese tattie scones, with a generous helping of butter, equals top tier snacking!
Granny's Top Tips
• Make sure you have plenty of extra flour to hand when it comes to rolling and shaping your potato scones. As the potatoes hold a good amount of water, the dough can very quickly become sticky and difficult to work with. So plenty of flour on your work surface, hands and rolling pin!
• You can transfer the dough in a circle to your frying pan and cut onto triangles once cooking; however, I find it much easier to cut your triangles before frying. One, it makes transferring to the pan easier. And two, it means your get nice crisp edges when they do cook.
• Alternatively, you can cut your tatty scones into whatever shape your desire. Another popular choice is to use a cookie cutter and have them in individual circles.
• Roll out your potato scones one circle at a time. If you roll all 3 circles at once, they will stick to your work surface. Only roll and shape your next potato scones right before you are ready too trannsfer them to the frying pan.
Tattie Scones
INSTRUCTIONS
- Peel your potatoes and cut into even sized halves/quarters. Place in a pan with enough cold water to cover and bring to the boil. Boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes or until potatoes break apart easily when pierced with fork.
- Remove the pan from the heat and drain the water. Allow your potatoes to air dry for a few minutes before mashing them with a potato masher. Add the butter/margarine and mash through the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl. Add the flour to the bowl and using a wooden spoon, mix the flour through to potatoes to create a dough. You may need more/less flour depending on how moist your potatoes are.
- Once you have a dough-like consistency, tip your potato mixture onto a well floured surface and gently knead it briefly, before dividing the dough into 3 even sized balls.
- Warm a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat (with no oil/butter). Roll your first ball into a circle about 20cm diameter and 5mm thickness, using lots of flour on your surface and rolling pin so they don't stick. Cut your circle into quarters, making 4 even-sized triangles. Using a spatula, transfer the potato tringles to your hot [dry] frying pan.
- Allow the potato scones to cook, checking the underside every few minutes. Once the underside has a good colour to it, flip the potato scones to cook the other side too.
- Once our potato scones have a good colour on both side, remove from the heat and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with your remaining potato balls.
- Enjoy warm with a slathering of butter, alongside your cooked breakfast, or in a roll with some sausages/bacon and sauce!
IMPORTANT NOTE:
All my recipes are developed using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and millilitres). Cup measurements are available as a conversion but these, unfortunately, won't always be as accurate. For best results, I always recommend baking with a digital scale.
Free-from & Vegan
Gluten-free: You can make these gluten-free Tattie Scones by swapping out the flour for a gluten-free flour but some experimenting will be required in regards to quantities, as different flours will absorb the moisture from the potatoes in different ways.
Vegan: To make these vegan Tattie Scones just use a dairy-free/vegan margarine.
62 responses
Absolutely love these. Can’t buy them here in London. Going to try this recipe very soon. Thanks!
Alot of supermarkets sell potato cakes, which we have with breakfast. I don’t know if they are the same though! Not with cheese though.
Grew up in Belfast and Edinburgh. My family called this “fadge.” Delicious, ThANK YOU.
Been making these potato cakes as we call them for years. Delicious
Me too! And – I have cold mashed potato in the fridge right now…
Ha ha, can see what you’re thinking, and I like it! Good job I haven’t any in the fridge or I’d be there doing the same
Gotta love potato bread, it makes an Ulster Fry, look forward to mine on a Saturday morning. Can’t wait to try this recipe with a wee bit of the cheese. I also love champ potato bread, as we say in Belfast, “you couldn’t beat it with a big stick”
Excellent. I personally like them at about 3mm thick.
Best in a bacon, Haggis and tattie scone bap with genuine Scottish baps. (English Tesco stores do a canny bap )
would love the recipe for your potatoe bread Jayne thanks
i make them all the time love the recipe so thank you
Love ❤ them big time x0.
All really nice any time of day and very easy for fishing trip or camping try cooking them in pork dripping just a nother level many thanks.
These are ❤ Would love to make them from leftover mash as I ALWAYS over do and have fridge leftovers which 9 times out of 10 ends up in the bin after sitting in the fridge forgotten after a week or so
Could you please advise on flour quantity/ratio as I never get it right
Funny you asked that
I just did the math to figure that very thing…500 to 125
is 25%
So 1/4 cup flour for every full cup of potato
Please tell me what to look for as a floury potato. All I ever see are waxy ones. In Edinburgh, when Iwas wee, floury potatoes were easily obtained. We called anything bakked on a hot metal plate a girdle scone. You can, of course bake normal scones this way as well..Baking without an oven must have originated in the early iron age after using hot stones.from the discovery of flour.
Maris pipers or king edwards are the best potatoes to use. I use maris pipers
Maris Piper and King Edwards are available in UK, but in Canada and USA russet potatoes are the equivalent as Maris Piper and King Edward potatoes are not available here! Nice and easy recipe, thank you :)
Just perfect and exactly what I was looking for to rustle something up :-)
Oh my goodness this is out new favourite! My son asked me to put tomatoes in his, with the cheese and said it was better than pizza.
Thank you so much for sharing this….you’re right the cheese ……mmmmmm
LOVE THESE, mu Irish Granny used to make these for us and they definitely were delicious.
We had them when l was growing up, they were rolled out and filled with leftover roast beef which had been minced up with onion and sealed and then fried in a pan with little dripping ( l made them and friend with oil) loved them. I hadn’t thought about them till l saw your recipe for Tattie Scones
It sounds Delicious, Carmen!
Hi to you all, my grandmother used to make these for us as children. That’s over seventy years ago. An absolute favourite then and now. Just love them!!! Yum yum !
These are potato bread made in Ireland for over 100years someone said they are tatty bread
The first time l tasted these l thought l’d died and gone to heaven. Served with bacon, egg, black pudding and tomatoes, sheer bliss even if it looks like a heart attack on a plate.
These are amazing and so easy to make!
I’ve always loved these in an Ulster fry since I was wee. My dad used to sprinkle his with sugar, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since, as well as on my fried pancakes. You’d be surprised how yummy sugar makes them.
Oh my…this is right up my alley. Thank you from Canada. Someone was asking about starchy potatoes and we use Russets in my part of the country. You are so kind for sharing your recipes, can’t wait to try these in the a.m.
I’ve been making then for family for over a year, they can’t get enough, thank you
Can these be frozen once cooled?
I froze a batch and they were fine….
Do you freeze before or after you fry them?
My family are from Belfast and we always called it a potato farl, I’ve never heard fadge before , is that from the Belfast area or Edinburgh?
Fadge you will hear around Portglenone area a lot, most likely and Ulster-Scot word. Potato Farl is bang on though.
Yummy
I buy them from a local British bakery ,, they come frozen. I just untoward and cook in butter ,, watch as they will burn fast you just need to reheat
I made this gluten free by swapping to Asda gluten free self raiding flour and adding a 1/4 tsp of baking powder. Same quantities and came out great. I added some grated cheese. My daughter and I ate them with butter and some slices of cheese (red Leicester) on top as a brunch- very yummy
I love this and all your recipes. Keep up the good work
Amazing! xXx
In Scotland these scones are known as “Tattie Scones” often served at supper time, warm, and oozing with butter or margarine. Made from left over main meal potatoes, usually cooked on a cast iron girdle often over the coal fire.
Any mixture not used at supper was fried in a frying pan for breakfast and served with bacon.
“Waste not want not” was the saying that accompanied the breakfast Tattie Scones, Delicious at any time..
I had tattie scones at my cousins she lived in Corby,very big Scottish community,we also had treacle scones that looked very similar.they were gorgeous
I’m in New Zealand and my nana taught me to make these out of leftover cold mashed potatoes. We usually have them with sausages and tomato sauce, tho I noticed you don’t put baking powder in yours, possibly a different “dialect” as well :) I usually add 1 heaped teaspoon with the flour, and mine look to be about twice the thickness.
Absolutely loving all your good old basic baking recipes, thank you so much for sharing them.
Delicious! I didn’t strictly stick to the recipe but it was the perfect inspiration and base recipe to a quick filling breakfast because I knew traditional flapjacks wasn’t going to cut it if we wanted something satiating. The last of the low fat milk was just starting to sour, so I decided to use it and make quick mash with the potato flakes I had on hand. We’re out of butter so I just used sunflower oil. I added fine dried garlic, a herby spice blend, and salt. We had it on its own and didn’t even add a topping. Soooo goood! I’ll definitely make this again!
This is a great recipe for tattie bread (as we used to call them in Belfast or potator farls if you were my posh granny)…couldn’t make an Ulster Fry without them!
I’ve been using your recipe for a while now to use up left-over mash and as long as you remember it’s 4 x parts mash to 1 x part flour you won’t go far wrong .. it’s the perfect ratio.
Never need to waste mash again (and sometimes, I accidently on purpose make too much to ensure there’s some left over ;) )
Thanks Amy!
My Great-grandmother came from Scotland to the US before WWII and made these for us as kids. Once cooked, she put them under a towel to keep warm and soft. Without the towel they dry out into saltines. (My experience) We would top them with maple syrup or jellys or sugar and cinnamon then roll them up to eat. Good memories.
My grannie, used makes then, but following a broken hip she bought them from the local bakery. That was until they started to charge 4pence per scone so went back to baking them herself. She used to make a big batch, so there was enough for her and my aunt who stayed with her, my other aunt and family as well as my family. She was known to many across the world as friends of my cousins in Australia were told if your in Glasgow go and see Granny Livi, as well as some nurses who looked after her whilst she was in hospital. Granny’s recipes were always the best.
Just about to make these, the bakers in Dunbar used to make them on a Saturday they were the best!
Absolutely delicious, topped with bacon, haggis and left over whisky sauce, one night; the following night enjoyed with bacon, egg and mushrooms. Just one question – can you freeze them?
Loved everything you said and everything the commenters said about Tattie Scones. I always make my own as I am a Coeliac and gluten-free Tatties scones seldom appear in shop. I make a load and freeze them so there’s always some for breakfast.
Another winner. Not often I have mashed potato leftover but not I’ve found this……….!
Have always loved the bought variety. Now we live in France and can’t buy them – but if I’d known how easy and how incredibly delicious homemade ones were – thank you so much. Very happy lady
These are great I used instant managed potato as a cheat and fried in beef dripping
Hand on my heart it’s the best tattie scone ever
My Scottish Mum (Ayr) used to make these on a Sunday afternoon for Dad and us 3 boys, with Butter and Strawberry Jam . She had a cast iron griddle plate to cook them on.
I make them myself now and I’m older than my Mum was back then.
I use an electric Pancake Griddle Plate, works just as good.
Hello. I was asking my question on my iPad and your site thought I was a robot and kicked me off the site.
My question was – my beau (whom I am trying to make these for) remembers his Granny baking the tattle scones, I do not have a large non stick frying pan, so is it possible to bake them? Please and thank you
Susan
So glad to have a recipe I can follow been living out of Scotland for 2 years and missing a tattie scone of course having access to shop bought I have never had to buy. Wondering if these can be frozen or how long they would last? As much as I Love tattie scone I think 12 is too many to eat.
Why fry them? Cook them on a griddle/girdle
Yes, my Mum was known in her family for her tattie scones and she always used a “girdle” with a sprinkling of flour across the surface. It took me 30 years to perfect the skill to produce a tattie scone like hers!
Hello,
If au use regular flour how much baking powder should I use ?
Thanks !
Laura
So funny, I grew up calling potatoes totties, but always called tattie scones tatties. Im loving your site. x
Tried making these for the first time today…made them a little too thick, but were lovely. Nice addition to the weekend fry up :)
Made on a gloomy Sunday morning-perfect! Just need to find a triangular cutter tho- mine are not v symmetrical!
Just made them, delicious