Candy Cap Bread Pudding Recipe

Chef Todd Humphries of Kitchen Door generously agreed to share his recipe for candy cap bread pudding, an insanely delicious dish that is on Kitchen Door's menu every day.  WARNING: May be habit-forming.

Photo by Ashley Teplin.

Candy Cap Mushroom Bread Pudding

Yield: 1- 13x9 pan

• 6 cups heavy cream
• ½ cup dried candy cap mushrooms
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 whole eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 ¼ loaves brioche
• ¼ cup dried currants
• ¼ cup dried golden raisins

1. Measure cream into a sauce pot and add dried mushrooms.
2. Heat until just simmering. Let infuse for 1 hour.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, yolks, both sugars, and salt.
4. Add cream infusion and vanilla.
5. Strain through a very fine strainer, set aside.
6. Remove all crust from brioche. Slice into medium sized cubes.
7. Layer half of the brioche in the 13x9 pan, sprinkle over half of the currants and half of the raisins.
8. Add the rest of the brioche and top with remaining currants and raisins.
9. Pour custard over brioche. Gently press down on the top to ensure that the custard has soaked into the brioche well.
10. Cover with foil and place pan in a larger pan with water coming half way up the side of the 13x9.
11. Bake at 350 for 1 hour, rotating half way through.
12. Remove the foil and brown top of bread pudding for 10 min.
13. Cool bread pudding completely, preferably overnight, and slice into 12 portions.
14. Reheat in oven to serve.

For extra candy cap goodness, serve with Todd's recipe for Maple Anglaise Sauce... also made with mushrooms.

Maple Anglaise Sauce

Yield: 1 pint

• 1 ¼ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup whole milk
• 1 tablespoon dried candy cap mushrooms
• 6 tablespoons maple sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 4 egg yolks
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla

1. Measure cream and milk into a sauce pot.
2. Add dried mushrooms.
3. Heat until just simmering, infuse 1 hour.
4. Combine yolks, sugar, and salt in a medium sized bowl.
5. Reheat cream infusion to a simmer and temper into egg mixture.
6. Return everything to the pot and stir constantly over low heat with a rubber spatula until thickened, but not curdling.
7. Strain through a very fine strainer, add vanilla, cover surface with plastic and cool completely before use.

Why are we putting mushrooms in dessert? Check out my earlier post about candy cap mushrooms.

Maple-Flavored Mushrooms, And The Man Who Cooks Them

Though Todd Humphries has been cooking with candy cap mushrooms for years at his restaurants in Napa Valley, few people outside the area are familiar with these unique little funghi.  Candy caps (lactarius rubidus) are tiny bronze-colored mushrooms that grow wild in Mendocino, the Oakland Hills, and mushroom-friendly places north. 

Their claim to fame?  Candy caps smell and taste uncannily like maple syrup.

The (Mushroom) Man.
Photo by Ashley Teplin.

I sat down with Todd at his Napa restaurant Kitchen Door to learn more about these strange little beasts and their many delectable possibilities.  For those who don't know, Todd Humphries is the ultimate mushroom chef of Napa Valley, who not only cooks them in shockingly delicious ways, but also gets up pre-dawn to forage his own in the cold, damp wilds of northern California.

During his Martini House days, Todd used to offer seasonal all-mushroom tasting menus spotlighting beautiful and arcane varieties most people will never see again.  I was lucky enough to discover candy caps at such a dinner, just a few days before Martini House closed (check out my article on WineCountry.com for pictures and full report).  Fortunately for me and other candy cap lovers, Todd now runs his candy cap mushroom bread pudding on Kitchen Door's menu every day of the week... and he graciously agreed to share his recipe with you, my loyal blog readers.  You're welcome.

No one seems to know how or why the maple aroma and flavor is present in these mushrooms, but it's unmistakeable.  Fresh candy caps have a fainter maple scent than the dried versions -- which quickly dominate any airspace they're exposed to -- but can still be distinguished from similar-looking mushrooms by the milky fluid they exude when punctured (hence the Latin name "lactarius") and the rough cat's tongue texture of the cap. 

Fresh candy caps are very fragile and highly perishable, but also delicious to cook with if you have the opportunity, Todd says.  He recalls serving a rouget dish at Martini House with a curry reduction sauce and fresh candy caps sauteed in butter, where the mushrooms' spice and sweet aromatics complemented and amplified the sauce in a truly unique way.

The Kitchen Door candy cap bread pudding. They also
sell it to go, so you can ravish it in the privacy
of your own home.

Because of the perishability factor, though, most candy cap dishes in restaurants are made using dried mushrooms, which also have the strongest maple flavor and that slight hint of spice.  It takes 10-12 pounds of fresh mushrooms to yield one pound of dried, so dried candy caps tend to be pricy propositions.  Fortunately, they are potent little buggers and a little goes a long way.

Dried candy caps can be pulverized into a powder to use in pancakes, cookies, or spaetzle, but most commonly Todd uses them whole to infuse cream or milk for desserts (think panna cotta, anglaises... and bread pudding).  He recommends either a cold soak in the liquid overnight, or a slow, gentle warming of the liquid -- but boiling liquids, as in a reduction, seem to muddy the flavor somehow.  Another tip from the pro: don't try to rehydrate dried candy caps and use them whole like you would dried porcinis.  The texture just doesn't work. 

The maple flavor infuses warm liquid at an astonishing rate, as I discovered when playing at home with some dried mushrooms.  My 10-minute candy cap syrup proved a very interesting cocktail mixer for Calvados and fresh lemon juice, and Todd tells me he has seen other candy cap syrups on the market -- as well as candy cap-infused oil out of Oregon.  I'm thinking that would be amazing on crostini toasts with cheeses or charcuterie.

Curious to get your hands on some, for your own experiments?  Try Connie Green of Wine Forest Mushrooms, who supplies Kitchen Door and many other amazing restaurants on a wholesale basis, but also now operates a retail pantry store online.  

And please let me know about your delicious concoctions by commenting below.

Sneak Preview of Oxbow's Kitchen Door

Last night I scored a fabulous sneak preview of Todd Humphries and Richard Miyashiro's Kitchen Door, which is slated to open to the public next Tuesday, June 14th.  I'd previously spoken with the dream team behind this new restaurant while it was still under construction, and you can read all about the background in the resulting Tablehopper.com article.

The lovely and enchanting Beef Carpaccio

The menu has a lot of variety, from the legendary Cream of Mushroom soup ($7), Kobe Beef Burger with wine-stewed onions and Swiss cheese ($13.95), and Beef Carpaccio with Himalayan truffle puree, crispy potato confetti, arugula, and lemon aioli ($10.95), to the new Korean Style Short Ribs in Soya Glaze with spicy mushroom, veggie, and bacon fried rice ($14), and Alsatian Flammeküche flatbread topped with ham, onions, gruyère cheese, watercress, and frisée ($13.75).  Fans of Humphries' mushroom soup should also check out the Hen of the Woods Mushroom Flatbread ($13.95), whose delectable blend of parmesan cream, provolone, mozzarella, starch, and mushroom is essentially a pizza version of the soup, and the ideal vehicle for gathering up any traces of shroomy love still in your bowl. 

Juicy duck + tangy carrots and daikon + Sriracha mayo = WINNING

As a Vietnamese food fanatic, I was delighted to also spy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle soup (pho ga) ($12) and a Roast Duck Banh Mi Dip ($12.95).  This version of the classic sandwich combined the usual magic assemblage of pickled veggies, rich meat, and spicy mayo with a little dunking bowl of tasty duck broth and perfectly cooked sweet potato fries.  It all vanished in short order, with only a few drops of broth remaining.

Hen of the Woods Flatbread: one of the many tasty things
coming out of Kitchen Door's wood-burning oven.

Sides like 4505's Chicharrones (a.k.a. "Piggy Puffs" here) ($3.75), Roasted Shishito Peppers with lime and Korean chili flakes ($6.75), Charcuterie from Fatted Calf ($11.95), and Burrata with olive pesto and herb flat bread ($8.25) clearly take aim at the gnawing, ravening, rich-toothed beast within.  This is comfort food at its best, with layers of sophisticated flavor and loads of satisfaction for your base, reptilian brain.


Desserts mostly center around the softserve ice cream from Straus (sundaes with tiny marshmallows, fudge, candied nuts; or dulce de leche and fried churros; or marinated strawberries; or espresso, $3.75-$6.50), but there's also a Candy Cap Mushroom Bread Pudding ($6.95), Panna Cotta with summer berry compote ($6.50), an assorted cookie plate ($6), and Napa Cakes Panforte ($3.50), loaded with nuts, fruits, and spice.

Looking towards the south wall.
The dessert station is where the Oxbow Wine Merchants' refrigerated
high-end wine room used to be.

In terms of beverages, I was loving on their Rosso Fazekas Sangiovese, which is available on tap for $8.00/glass, $17.00 for a half-liter (2/3 of a bottle).  Balanced and earthy, this was for me the perfect food wine.  A total of eight wines and four beers are available on tap, with 20 more bottled wines available by the glass, half-liter, or bottle, and nine more beers in bottles or cans.  Every single wine is available by the glass, too, so you can truly order only what you want to drink. 

Some might gripe that the wine selection is fairly simple, but Kitchen Door is not Martini House.  This is supposed to be a place you can visit any night of the week, every week.  A place for Tuesday night wine, not $75 Napa cabs.  In my opinion, the list has a remarkable range of food-friendly varietals: Vermentino, Riesling, Grüner Veltliner, Arneis, Grenache Blanc, and Viognier, in addition to the usual big three whites; Tempranillo, Grenache, Petite Sirah, Sangiovese, as well as the obvious reds.  And, the most expensive bottle is $42.  That works just fine for me....

Kitchen Door is planning to be open for lunch and dinner every day of the week starting June 14th.  I can't wait to go back... but I think it's safe to say the place will be mobbed.  And deservedly so.