ChefSteps

Mixing bowl

Cast-iron pan or skillet

Chef’s knife

Heavy cream

Egg(s)

Egg yolk(s)

Black pepper

Salt

Walnuts

Sage

Thyme

Rosemary

Garlic

Potato bread

Cut all your bread into 1-inch cubes.

Cut the bread

Pour the cream of mushroom base into a medium saucepan set on medium heat. Bread cubes more easily absorb hot liquid than cold. Remember, however, you need to keep the mushroom base warm instead of hot. Hot cream of mushroom will cook the eggs when you add them. 

When the mushroom base is warm, stir in the cream, eggs, and the salt and pepper. Stir in the walnuts with the sage, thyme, rosemary, and garlic. Stir well.

Cream of Mushroom Base

Black peppercorns

Mix it all up together

Add the bread cubes to the seasoned warm mushroom base. Use a silicone spatula to slowly toss and turn the cubes together. Stop when every cube is evenly coated.

Soak your bread

Let the mixture rest at room temperature for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. This rest will fully hydrate the bread. You do not want to end up with pieces of bread that have no custard in the middle, they will just be dried bread pieces otherwise.

Let it rest

In order to achieve a crunchy top and bottom, with a custardy center, we need to bake this hot and fast. 

Choose a cast-iron skillet or nonstick pan that easily holds the amount of bread pudding you are making. 

Put the pan in a cold oven and turn on the heat to 375 degrees. 

Once the pan is hot, tumble the soaked bread cubes into the pan and even out the top with a few taps of the silicone spatula. Bake until the bread pudding is set and a little jiggly, with the top cubes toasted and brown, about eight minutes.

Bake it up!

Serve it up!

This savory bread pudding–made with good bread and our cream of mushroom base—makes a crunchy, custardy deliciousness that everyone will love. You might want to plan on making two batches, to feed everyone who wants some. This might sound like stuffing, but it’s frankly better. Stuffing—let’s face it, probably most that you have tried—can be dry. Take the same idea of cubes of bread and something wet, use our cream of mushroom base instead of chicken stock, and you have the best qualities of stuffing with the custardy center of bread pudding. Here at ChefSteps, we like to take something familiar and give it new life. Frankly, we’re usually looking to make it even more delicious. So we decided on this idea of a savory bread pudding, then we experimented with different levels of herbs, nuts, eggs, and cream. We even attempted some versions with dried cherries and other fruits, to try the sweetness some people like in their stuffing. Nope. Not here. Instead, we bumped up the herbs and garlic, then added walnuts for the taste and extra fat. This final version hit all the notes we wanted to sing: a crisp to creamy custardy center, with all the flavors of classic stuffing. This one is good.

Savory Bread Pudding​

We know that many folks go to Thanksgiving celebrations where a table laden with dishes requires one staple: Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom condensed soup. This thick, gelatinous mass in a can is the basis for green bean casserole, scallop potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole, and something called creamed onion bake. (No one here has eaten this before. Have you?) Most folks want Thanksgiving dinner to be traditional. As you can imagine, here at ChefSteps, we’re about innovation and new flavors. The cream of mushroom base is still a great idea. This year, we decided to make it ourselves with Matsutake mushrooms, but you could use any variety of different wild mushrooms available in the Northwest, or a farmed mushroom like King oyster, or any mushrooms available where you live.When we began working on this recipe, we tried to pack as much mushroom flavor as we could into it. We assumed that a cream of mushroom with chanterelles and dried morel powder as the thickener would be the winner. It tasted super delicious. However, it looked like brown sludge. So we took our notes from the ingredients on that can and made a flavorful base that was white with chunks of mushroom that stand up to thick, creamy gravy.Now it is yours.

Savory Bread Pudding​

Savory Bread Pudding