When someone first mentioned this method to me, it was the muffin tin part that turned me off. Sounded so housewife-y, like making a pizza with store-bought crescent roll dough. So don't have the same reaction when you read the title because I've now made them and it works. Beautifully. The metal pan not only provides containment during the cook, it ensures a delightful crust that makes each little gratin a perfect, beautiful serving. Finished, my little potato stacks looked JUST like those in the picture included with the recipe on the link below. There are actually a number of recipes on the internet for this using varying types of cheese, or adding onion, etc. but for my French themed meal I preferred emphasis an emphasis on herbs and garlic and chose this recipe.
For cheese I went to Costco. I'd planned to buy Jarlsberg which is rich and melts well, but on the fly chose Havarti instead. Two reasons: 1) it's less about flavor than function, the cheese is the glue and Havarti's buttery flavor will integrate well and 2) I could buy a package of large pre-sliced squares at Costco. In my imagination, each square cut into four gave me a cheese layer without the cook who will do these for me having to grate or divide a cup of cheese between 12 portions--of which we have to make 90, so that's a considerable labor savings. Too, two Costco packages of sliced Havarti will cost less than 8 cups of grated Jarlsberg.
The only other change I made was to do the initial cook for 25 minutes at 400 vs. their 350 for 35.
Another step in my test kitchen madness involved letting them chill to cold room temp and then reheat in the microwave to test their do-aheadness. Excellent! Fresh out of the oven was best for the crusty texture but reheated was spot-on flavorwise
and didn't have that 'twice-cooked potato' flavor.
http://www.recipetineats.com/cheesy-potato-gratin-stacks-muffin-tin/
