Okay, so anybody who’s read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (or caught the 2018 movie on Netflix) knows the running gag, which is that the pie sounds dreadful, honestly. The crust is peelings. The inside is plain mash, with some beetroot thrown in because there’s no sugar, and the whole thing exists because the Germans were occupying the island and the pantry was bare. The characters only showed up for the literature. So why would anyone bake it now? Because with a few small fixes (salt, butter, crispier peels) it’s actually a genuinely good, thrifty potato pie. Here’s the version from the book, and the one I’d actually serve at book club.
What Is Guernsey Potato Peel Pie, Anyway?
It’s from the novel Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows published in 2008, the one written entirely as letters back and forth. A bunch of islanders are out past curfew (there was a secret roast pig involved), soldiers stop them, and somebody blurts out that they’re coming home from their book club, so now they have to actually start one. One member, Will Thisbee, insists on bringing food to the meetings, and his creation is the pie: potato peelings as the crust, mashed potatoes as the filling, and beets for sweetness.
The pie itself is fiction. The hunger behind it wasn’t. German troops occupied Guernsey from summer 1940 right through to Liberation Day on 9 May 1945, and that last winter people were genuinely going hungry. So eating peelings? Normal. Not a cute trick, just survival.
I love this bit. Back in 2018, around the film’s release, the Guernsey Botanical Trust held a potato peel pie contest, mostly because the trailer made the pie look so grim and they wanted to defend its honor. Rule one: peel has to go in. One of the judges suggested beetroot, streaky bacon, spring onion and cheese; someone from the Trust did sliced potatoes around mash, swede and parsnip.
The Original (Book-Style) Version
Random House, who published the novel, put out a tiny occupation-style recipe, and I mean tiny: a potato, a beet, a tablespoon of milk, salty water. You lay the raw peel in the pan, boil the potato and beet together, mash them with the milk, smear that over the peel, and bake around 15 minutes at 375°F. Done. Their own note basically says butter and salt would make it a lot better, which, yes.
Go for that one if you want the real 1944 experience at your themed dinner. Fair warning though, it’s bland and the uncooked peel stays kind of chewy, like a leather wallet. If you’d prefer that people go back for seconds, scroll on.
Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Recipe (the Good Version)
It’s still Will’s pie, peel crust, mash, beet. I just treat it nicer. The peels get butter and salt and a head start in a hot oven so they go crunchy, almost chip-like. The mash actually gets seasoned. And I dice the beetroot rather than mashing it through, which gives you pink little pockets instead of a pie the color of a highlighter pen.
| Ingredient | US | Metric |
|---|---|---|
| Starchy potatoes (russet, or Maris Piper in the UK), scrubbed | 1½ lb (about 4 medium) | 700 g |
| Butter, divided | 3 tbsp | 40 g |
| Cooked beetroot, diced | 1 cup (1 medium) | 150 g |
| Onion, finely chopped | 1 small | 110 g |
| Milk, warm | 3 tbsp | 45 ml |
| Fine salt | 1 tsp, plus a pinch for the peels | 6 g |
| Black pepper | ¼ tsp | to taste |
| Fresh thyme or chives (optional) | 1 tsp chopped | 1 tsp |
| Grated cheddar (optional, not wartime!) | ½ cup | 50 g |
1. Peel thick. Oven on, 400°F (200°C). Give the potatoes a proper scrub. Then grab a paring knife (not the peeler!) and take the skins off thick-ish, a little potato still stuck to them, roughly ⅛ inch. Peeler ribbons are so thin they scorch. Any green bits or sprouty eyes, cut them out. I’ll explain why further down.
2. Crisp the peels. Melt a tablespoon of the butter and toss the peels in it with some salt. Now tile them into an 8-inch (20 cm) pie dish, skin side down, overlapping like roof shingles, a few climbing the sides. In the oven they go for 15 to 20 minutes, till the edges look browned and crackly.
3. Boil and mash. While that’s happening, chunk up the naked potatoes, start them in cold salted water and let them simmer 12 to 15 minutes, till a knife goes in with zero fight. Meanwhile the onion and butter number two hang out in a little pan on medium for 6 to 8 minutes. Soft, sweet, not brown. Potatoes done? Drain, let them sit and steam in the colander a minute, because nobody likes watery mash, and then in goes the last butter, the warm milk, salt, pepper. Mash away.
4. Fill and bake. Fold in the onion, beet and herbs. Gently. Get rough here and it all goes Barbie pink. Pile it onto the crunchy peel, drag a fork across the top for little ridges that brown, cheese on if that’s your plan. Turn the oven to 375°F (190°C). Twenty to twenty-five minutes. Look for golden bits on the ridges.
5. Rest. Let it sit 10 minutes. Cut it straight away and it slumps all over the plate.
Printable Recipe
Guernsey Potato Peel Pie
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lb starchy potatoes 700 g, russet or Maris Piper, scrubbed
- 3 tbsp butter 40 g, divided
- 1 cup cooked beetroot 150 g, diced
- 1 small onion 110 g, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp milk 45 ml, warm
- 1 tsp fine salt plus a pinch for the peels
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp fresh thyme or chives chopped, optional
- ½ cup grated cheddar 50 g, optional
Equipment
- Large mixing bowl
- Sharp knife or mandoline slicer
- Pie dish (9–10 inch)
- Rolling Pin
- Baking sheet
- Pastry brush
Method
- Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Scrub the potatoes and peel them thickly with a paring knife, leaving about ⅛ inch of potato on the skins. Cut away any green patches or eyes.
- Toss the peels with 1 tbsp melted butter and a pinch of salt. Press them skin-side down into an 8-inch (20 cm) pie dish, overlapping and up the sides. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until crisp at the edges.
- Meanwhile, cut the peeled potatoes into chunks, cover with cold salted water and simmer 12 to 15 minutes until tender. Cook the onion in 1 tbsp butter over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes until soft.
- Drain the potatoes, let them steam dry 1 minute, then mash with the remaining butter, warm milk, salt and pepper.
- Gently fold the onion, diced beetroot and herbs into the mash. Spread over the crisped peels, rough up the top with a fork and sprinkle with cheese if using.
- Reduce the oven to 375°F (190°C) and bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden in spots. Rest 10 minutes before slicing.
Nutrition
Notes
- Book-style version: raw peels in the pan, potato and beet boiled and mashed with milk, baked 15 minutes at 375°F.
- Cut away green patches and sprouts on potatoes; very green or bitter potatoes should be discarded.
- Variation: crumble 4 strips crisp streaky bacon into the mash.
- Keeps 3 days refrigerated; reheat in the oven to keep the peels crisp.
- Nutrition is an estimate per serving, with cheese.
Private Notes
Tried this recipe?
Let us know how it was!A Safety Note About Potato Peels
Eating potato skin is totally fine. Green spots and sprouts, less so. Green itself? Chlorophyll, harmless. Problem is it’s a sign of solanine nearby, a bitter compound potatoes make on their own, and too much of it means a bad tummy. This pie is basically all peel, so cut wide around anything green and around the eyes. Very green potato, or bitter tasting? Toss it. Keeping them in a dark, cool cupboard stops the greening to begin with.
Variations
With pastry. Prefer a proper crust? Line the dish with shortcrust, lay the crisped peels on the base, then fill. It’s less “wartime,” more Sunday lunch.
Bacon and cheese. The Guernsey contest judge’s idea: crumble 4 strips of crisp streaky bacon into the mash and use the cheese on top. Not remotely rationing-friendly. Very good.
Root veg mash. Use swede for roughly a third of the potato (rutabaga, if you’re in the US), or parsnip. Root veg kept a lot of island families going in those years, and their sweetness suits beetroot.
Shortcut beetroot. Vacuum-packed cooked beets (not the pickled ones in vinegar) save you an hour of boiling.
A Guernsey Book Club Menu
Hosting a book club for this one? The pie is the obvious centerpiece, but a whole table of it would be a lot of potato. A few ideas that fit the island and the era:
- Guernsey bean jar. The island’s real comfort dish, a slow-baked pot of beans with pork; Locate Guernsey has a traditional bean jar recipe.
- A hearty soup. An old-fashioned vegetable beef soup, cheap and filling, very make-do-and-mend.
- Something a bit nicer. A Bill Blass meatloaf is another dish with a literary backstory, and it goes with the pie surprisingly well.
- Dessert. Something wartime-simple, like a bread and butter pudding, made with stale bread, naturally.
Leftover potatoes? Our healthy cottage pie and this sausage, potato and leek hash will use them up.
Leftovers
Covered, in the fridge, 3 days tops. I reheat slices in the oven at 350°F (175°C), about 15 minutes, because the microwave turns the crunchy peel floppy. Freezing? I wouldn’t. Thawed mash goes a bit weepy.
FAQ
Is potato peel pie a real wartime recipe?
This exact pie was made up for the book. Everything around it wasn’t: the occupation happened, the hunger was serious, and stretching meals with peel and root veg was something real families did all over wartime Britain and the Channel Islands.
What’s the book about, quickly?
1946. Juliet Ashton, a writer in London, gets a letter from a Guernsey farmer who found her name in a secondhand book, and she ends up writing to the whole oddball book club the islanders set up during the occupation. Shaffer and Barrows told it all in letters. Lily James played Juliet in the 2018 movie.
Shepherd’s pie or cottage pie, peel or no peel?
Up to you. Skins on = rustic, slightly more fiber. Skins off = smooth and silky. Here, obviously, the peel is the entire point.
Make-ahead?
Yep. Do the peels and the mash a day early and fridge them apart. Next day, build and bake, giving it 5 to 10 minutes longer since it’s going in cold.
Did you make it for book club? Tell me in the comments which version you went with, the strict wartime one or the buttery one.
emm
Best