Potatoes

I've done it both on the rack and on a tray and I find that mine cook better on a tray...especially since I dont have a fan oven, just a simple electric one.

I do mine on the rack.

Have you looked for different variety of potatoes?  My Sainsbury's has an entire side of a produce aisle (4 produce aisles total) devoted to potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Farmer's markets have even more.  Are you using baking potatoes or more like a boiling potato?

Again, a disclaimer, I am not much of a potato person.  It's rare when I eat them, and then it's sweet potatoes, boiled new potatoes, or mash.  When I do make baked white potatoes, I look for a thicker skinned, big potato.

I would have to agree with you that the skins on many of the Idaho potatoes are indeed thicker here in the US than the ones you get at most UK supermarkets. There may be some other varieties you can get at farm stands and organic type places that are thicker, but I never really experimented with it as I was happy enough using Maris Piper or whatever the recommended variety for baking was (I can't recall now!).

Nigel Slater recommends washing and then drying the potato, poking it with a fork a couple times, rubbing it was olive oil and good sea sale (I recommend Maldon), and then baking directly on the rack at 200. Times will depend upon your oven, size of potato, etc. If you're after a twice baked, why not try taking them out just before they are done, scooping out what you want to mash, and then returning the skins to the oven for another 5-10 minutes to finish baking? Might help...

Mmmm. Now I want potatoes!

I usually use either King Edward's or Rooster potatoes - both work well.

My mother always stuck a (clean - only for this purpose) iron nail into potatoes before baking them so they cook evenly through the middle. Then she made these cloth envelope/bag things for microwaving potatoes and gave them to everyone for Christmas so that's what I use now.

After reading this thread, I felt compelled to have baked potatoes last night.     Maris piper, stabbed with a fork and put on the oven rack at 210 (non-fan) for an hour.  Yuuuuuuuuuum.

I love Asterix potatoes, but I only saw them at the potato festival in 2009.  We bought some seed potatoes and got a lot.

They didn't have any this year, but they were amazing!