I can’t think of anything more comforting than these cheesy mashed potatoes, formed into dumplings, basted in butter and baked in the oven.

The Pfluten of the recipe comes from the French, pfloutes/floutes/pflutters, a potato dumpling casserole popular in the Jura and Alsace.

I found a recipe for Aargauer Kartoffelpfluten in one of my old cookbooks, Schweizer Tafelfreuden, a great collection of classic Swiss recipes from the 1970s. The Swiss German addition seems to be adding a lot of cheese in place of other binders like egg or flour, and I’m here for it.

Many additional recipes are available online from the usual sources like Betty Bossi and swissmilk, as well as doazmol’s historic collection of recipes and even a sweet version from Elisabeth Fülscher.

You can make your mashed potatoes especially for this dish, or simply re-purpose leftover ones.

1 kg potatoes

150 ml milk

100 g hard cheese, grated

nutmeg, salt and pepper

50 g butter

4 tbsp breadcrumbs

chopped spring onion to garnish

Peel and cube the potatoes, then cover them with cold water.

Add some salt, and boil until the potatoes are cooked through (they easily fall of a knife when poked).

Drain well, then mash the potatoes, adding the milk and cheese.

Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 200 C / 400 F / gas mark 6.

Melt the butter and prepare a casserole dish.

Dip two tablespoons in the butter and use them to form large quenelles of potatoes, depositing them in the casserole dish.

Once you have filled the dish, pour over the rest of the melted butter, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the top has browned a little.

• This recipe is also a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes—skip the milk (or just add a little splash if your potatoes are really dry), stir in the cheese, and go from there. The dish tends to be a little firmer with leftover potatoes and softer if you make the mash for this meal in particular.

• I used some local mountain cheese, but Gruyère or Appenzeller would be equally delicious.

• Serve with applesauce.

• If you don’t have green onion, you could also garnish with chopped chives.