~12piecesbacon (enough to cover the bottom and top of the "cake". Have extra available.
½tspsea salt
½tspfreshly ground white pepper
Kitchen spray
Instructions
Peel, wash and grate the potatoes on a box grater.
Place the grated potatoes in a kitchen towel and squeeze as much of the water out as possible.
Thinly slice the onions, you can use a mandoline. Then break them apart into single pieces.
Place the potatoes in a bowl and add the onion, cheese, prunes, raisins, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Taste the mixture and add more salt and pepper if needed.
In a round cake pan, I used a flan pan which worked very well, spray the pan with kitchen spray.
Line the pan with the bacon. You want it completely covered, so overlap the bacon a bit. Let the bacon slices fold over the pan so you can cover the top of the cake with the bacon.
Add the potato mixture, and tap down, carefully, with the pan to settle a bit.
Fold over the bacon to cover the "bottom" of the cake. Remember you will be flipping the cake over onto a serving plate.
Add extra pieces of bacon as needed to cover.
In a roasting pan, place the cake pan and add water to come up toe 1/3 to 1/2 the side of the cake pan.
Bring the oven up toe 375 degrees F, then place the roasting pan in the oven.
Bake ~ 2 hours. Check regularly the cake and interior temperature. The interior of the potato cake should come to over 180 degrees.
Remove the pan and set on a cooling rack. This is a critical step. If you try to flip the cake at this point it will fall apart. Let it cool for 10 minutes or so.
Place the serving plate on top of the cake pan and with oven mits flip over the cake. It should fall out without problem as one whole onto the serving plate.
Slice and serve.
Notes
*The cheese you add it completely up to your taste. The original dish as described used Roblechon cheese, but I prefer a harder cheese such as comte.