Savory Bread Pudding: Shiitake, Leek, and Goat Cheese

Way back in the Thanksgiving time frame, Ann expressed a desire to have a savory bread pudding for Christmas Day brunch, by way of celebrating. We haven't been eating many simple carbs at all since August and the bread pudding would be a rare treat. I proposed making one with shiitakes, leeks, and goat cheese and she agreed, further asking if I could make it with challah. So I made a loaf of challah and assembled the bread pudding on Christmas Eve, baking it in early afternoon on Christmas Day.

Savory Bread Pudding: Shiitake, Leek, and Goat Cheese

I really love doing dishes like this for brunch because I can assemble everything the night before, leaving only to pull it out of the refrigerator and put it in the oven the next day.

Starting the Flavorings: Leeks and Shiitakes

Cooking the Leeks and Shiitakes with Thyme

I started by cooking sliced leeks and shiitakes with a bit of thyme. Thyme is one of my favorite herbs and I think it pairs extremely well with shiitakes.

Measuring the Bread

When making any kind of bread pudding, I always use the baking pan to measure the bread. I keep cutting cubes until the pan is full. That way, there's no guessing. Because challah is so soft, I cut it into very large cubes so that it will not fall apart when I add the custard. I prefer to use more substantial bread for bread puddings. When using bread with more body and a tougher crust, I would cut it much smaller.

You can use any bread you like. For example, I have made bread pudding with croissants and my grandmother used to smear store-bought white bread with butter and jam and shingle (overlap) the whole slices of smeared bread the length of her baking dish.

Dry Ingredients Before Mixing with Custard

Bread Pudding Ready to Bake or Refrigerate

The custard for bread pudding can be flavored or unflavored. In the restaurant days, I would infuse the cream for the custard with garlic, herbs, spices, and dried mushrooms, among other flavorings. For this bread pudding, I did not want to take that extra step, mainly because I had just made the challah and spent three days making French onion soup for Christmas Eve Dinner. Also, I wanted to reduce the fat in the custard by using low fat milk rather than the 40% heavy cream that I used to use at the restaurant.

A decent rule of thumb is that each egg will set one cup of liquid, so each quart of liquid requires four eggs. I always use five eggs. It's always a good idea to know how much custard volume you need for the size pan you will be using. A full shallow hotel pan will take a gallon (plus 20 eggs), a half hotel will take a half gallon (plus 10 eggs), and this 9x9 pan will take a quart (plus 5 eggs).

At the restaurant, in addition to making large puddings, we used to bake bread puddings in individual molds, in which case, we'd fill each mold full of bread and then ladle custard into the mold until the mold was full.

This 9x9 pan contains, in addition in addition to the bread and custard, a leek, a half a pound of shiitakes stemmed and sliced, and four ounces of fresh goat cheese.

 

Bread Pudding Coming Out of the Oven

Baking bread puddings is a simple matter of putting them uncovered in a moderate oven (350F) and waiting for them to set up and brown on top to the degree that you want. A bread pudding of this depth will take about 90 minutes, a good bit longer than many people expect. A full hotel pan of bread pudding is going to take about two hours to set in the center and brown. If you're wanting to eat your bread pudding while it is still warm, you'll probably want it to cool for 20 minutes before you cut it so that it has a chance to solidify a bit. All this is by way of saying that you should allow plenty of time to cook and cool your bread pudding before you want to eat it.

Prosecco: A Great Match for Goat Cheese

The slightly acidic flavor of the goat cheese in the bread pudding seems to go incredibly well with Prosecco, so we put a bottle in the refrigerator and had a glass while the pudding was in the oven and another glass with the pudding.