What the Heck is a Pommes Anna?

2nd December 2025

What the heck is a Pommes Anna? Well, I’m here to tell you. It is a classic French dish made of thinly sliced potatoes, layered in a nice neat pattern, cooked in a crazy amount of clarified butter. It is then baked in a hot oven and once cooked, it is flipped to reveal a glorious golden potato cake with the beautiful decoration. It’s rich, it’s crispy, it’s creamy and it’s buttery, what more would you want?

I’m a little bit obsessed with Julia Child and I came across her Pommes Anna recipe in Mastering The Art of French Cooking Volume 2. I didn’t really take notice of it to be honest, until I saw one of my favourite YouTubers, Antichef, make it on his channel. When I saw him make one I realised I knew exactly what a Pommes Anna was my whole life. However, I didn’t know that’s what it was called and where it came from.

A little background. My mum is British, born to Polish parents who migrated to the UK after World War II. Her mum, my Gran, was the most amazing little round Polish woman with a thick accent and the most beautiful smile. She was a wonderful woman, her hugs felt like home and her food was pure comfort. She cooked, and she cooked damn well, especially for someone who was forced out of Poland at 12 years old. My Gran loved potatoes, so much so that she would eat them daily. Boiled, roasted, fried, she loved them. She would sit on her couch with a big pot of potatoes and peel them with her little black paring knife, while watching a repeat episode of Murder She Wrote. It is honestly one of my fondest memories of my dear Gran.

One dish she would often make herself for lunch or dinner was fried potatoes. She would slice the potatoes so thin you could see through them, she would then layer them in her cast iron pan in a glorious pattern and then cook them on the stove or often in the oven. She would cover the potato slices in butter or pork fat she had saved from a roast a few nights before. And out came this most amazing, crispy, buttery, thin potato pancake thing. And wouldn’t you know it, for all of those years, my little Gran was actually making her own version of a Pommes Anna!

My beautiful Gran, Helena Okruczynska.

So back to today, I decided to make my very first Pommes Anna. Now, I’m no potato expert, I wasn’t really sure which variety of potato to use. So, I opted for a Dutch Cream. Mainly because they are my favourite potato and taste absolutely delicious any way you cook them.

There is only one other ingredient in this recipe, butter. Clarified butter to be exact. I have clarified butter before and its quite incredible that after a few short minutes of heating your butter, you skim off all the milk solids and you are left with clear yellow liquid that can be heated to higher temperatures and won’t burn. This is essential in this recipe, as you don’t want to burn the butter or in turn, burn the potatoes.

Unlike my Gran, I cheated and used a mandolin slicer. I don’t have the skill or patience to cut potatoes consistently thin, and I want to try and keep all my fingers thanks. After the potatoes are sliced, its best to pat them dry with paper towel. Then you need to work quick as you need to arrange the potatoes in the pan over a moderate heat. This starts the cooking process and allows a glorious crust to form on the bottom layer, which will actually become the top layer as you flip it out when serving.

Now, here is where the clarified butter comes into play. Each layer of potato requires a generous drizzle of butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This will ensure each slice of potato is coated in butter and seasoned nicely. I won’t lie to you; it’s a lot of butter! My Pommes Anna had 5 layers and used 200g of butter, so it’s safe to say you won’t be eating this every day! Once fully assembled and all the potatoes and butter have been used up, you need to place a circle of baking paper, and pop something heavy on top of the potatoes to weigh them down when cooking. This helps the potatoes stick together, revealing all those gorgeous layers when serving. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything super heavy, so I just used another frying pan. It seemed to work quite well; I might need to use something slightly heavier next time as the layers fell apart when cutting.

After some time, you will need to remove the baking paper and the frying pan to reveal the potatoes, to allow them to brown and crisp up even more. Be patient and test to make sure the potatoes are cooked through. Mine took an extra 20 minutes and it was bloody hard to wait, that marvellous buttery smell filling the kitchen was so mouthwatering and I just couldn’t wait to devour it.

Thankfully, it was ready. You need to drain off the excess butter before you flip it out onto your serving dish. This is a little tricky as you don’t want to lose the whole thing, so I used the second frying pan and managed to release some of the extra butter. It wasn’t much, but I was glad to see a few less calories in the dish! Then you have to perform a fancy circus trick and flip the Pommes Anna onto a plate. It is best to work quick as any hesitation could result in a crash landing.

I was amazed when I first saw the top of my Pommes Anna, it was superbly golden and ever so crispy. The clarified butter did its job and didn’t burn a thing. It looked and smelt like pure heaven. I sprinkled some sea salt flakes and dived in! I must have blacked out as I have no idea what happened and a few minutes later half of the Pommes Anna was gone! Whoops! If that doesn’t tell you how good this thing is, I don’t know what will. It was heaven. Two simple ingredients created something so spectacular. The French really know how to do it, don’t they?

So my advice to anyone who loves cooking and potatoes is to give this recipe a go. It fairly easy, you just need a bit of patience. But I promise you it is well worth it. Julia suggests to serve a Pommes Anna with a roast meat of some kind or as a side with chops or steak. But honestly, it is perfect on its own, but in my opinion it would pair perfectly with a gorgeous garden salad and a simple vinaigrette.  

Until next time.

Jo x

Recipe can be found in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 2 by Julia Child.