Potato Pancakes with Apple Sauce / Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelkompott

Really really delicious! We regularly had potato pancakes when I was a kid (and back then, I didn't like them as much), but all of a sudden I really had this urge to make them again. This would have been 5 stars, had it not been for so many mistakes and omission...

When I grated the potatoes and the onion, they released a lot of liquid. Although nothing is said about this in the recipe, I decided to sieve the whole thing. And even then I had to add a lot of flour until I thought the mixture had the right texture.

When you fry them, remember to fry them on low temperature and keep checking if there's enough butter - I think that's the way to make them crisp. They should be about 0.5-0.8 cm in thickness (0.2-0.3 inch). And it takes ages until they're done! Use two pans, if you can. Or better three. Or four!

I did wonder how they had turned out if I hadn't grated them finely. Or if, say, I had only grated half of it finely, and the other half coarsely. Probably something I might try next time. And add loads of salt and pepper - remember that you will be eating them with a sweet apple sauce!

The apple sauce was really nice as well. Of course I forgot to buy cinnamon sticks, but adding about half (?) a teaspoon* of ground cinnamon right at the end worked perfectly well.

If you prepare the apple sauce a few days in advance (or just use store-bought one), you can also easily serve this as a midweek dinner, under one condition: that you don't forget to use your kitchen machine grater. Seriously, no-one would be so stupid and grate everything by hand, and only then remember the kitchen machine, right? Absolutely no-one! (err...)

And as for the serving size - 4 servings? Who are you kidding? Rather 1 1/2 or 2...

PS: Oops, forgot to take the photos as I planned - too busy with eating...

• One teaspoon of ground cinnamon is perfectly fine as well but will give a less subtle flavour. I wouldn't add more than that.

Edited 31 August 2011: Don't add too much flour, it'll make them turn gooey. I'm thinking whether corn starch could be a better alternative to flour, or at least mix of both. You can also serve them with cranberry sauce, or cream cheese/sour cream mixed with a little garlic and fresh herbs (parsley, chives), though apple sauce is the classic combination. Don't grate the potatoes in advance - raw grated potatoes turn black on the surface.

Edited 3 October 2016: An easy way to make this for kids and yet make sure that they eat enough veggies is to add grated carrots (think about 1 part carrots and 3 parts potatoes, in weight). And if you're bored by plain old Kartoffelpuffer, then adding a bit of garlic and rosemary (with or without the carrots) might well do the trick - added bonus: they still go well with apple sauce.

I used about 1.5 cloves of garlic, and 1/2 tsp of rosemary. I also used 2 eggs and 1150 g potatoes, and used a small portionof that to mix with 50 g carrots for my toddler. I used three pans, made them as flat as possible and was busy frying them for about an hour - there must be a better solution than that?