Rustic Mushroom Bread Pudding Recipe in My New Cosmo Oven (2024)

“The air is full of spices.”

One of my favourite lines from the 1995 film version of Sense and Sensibility and it rings true in this house these last four days. It’s all chopped herbs, cracked pepper and sizzling butter! The electric oven is covered in snow out in the drive and waiting to be taken to the dump and now…

I’m cooking on a brand new range.

I can’t believe it.

I did a good job faking it, but my range at the old house had turned into a piece of junk over the years. The glass had cracked one day while baking baguettes, three burners had to be lit with a match, it would never level out and oil would slosh to one side of the cast iron, knobs were broken off and I hated it.

We moved here knowing there was an old electric oven. I hate electric ovens but I was not prepared for this beast. I was prepared to adopt my big girl panties and deal with it for a few months but I truly had no idea how bad it would be.

First, it blackened basic banana bread and then it destroyed by poor Amélie’s birthday cake. Turns out, smoke poured from it every time I used it. We had to bake on “warm” as any temperature would annihilate whatever I was baking. The burners we equally as unreliable and the smoke detector blared numerous times a day.

I thought I was gonna have a meltdown.

But first, we had to begin to hammer out some of the more creative aspects of what this kitchen will look like when we are done with it. I am trying to create a kitchen that looks as mismatched and old as possible (remember the copper sink I have been storing in the barn for over a year???) Ditching the electric and going gas (propane) meant running a gas line and ordering a propane conversion kit for whatever range we decided on.

The details were too much for this spontaneous soul but I sat down every night to scour stoves, read reviews and dream. I am saving (slowly) for a lovely La Canche but that is going to take a few years at least, so in the meantime, I wanted something affordable but with a real industrial/chef look to it. I’m super particular. I wanted legs, no backsplash, nothing digital, five burners and 36 inches. And I did NOT want to spend over $1500.

I always tell Joel, I’m NOT picky.I just know what I want.I would say it’s one of my finer features.(Insert evil, French-accented laughter.)

I finally settled on the Cosmo, sort of a knock-off Viking if you will.You can check out the Cosmo here. We named ours “Kramer” and I’m smitten.

It’s free-standing, thirty-six inches has five burners and a rotisserie inside. No more smokey stovetop only meals… I finally could go back to creating in the kitchen.

Kramer was installed on Friday and I haven’t left his side yet. The oven is so easy to keep clean (it’s a stainless top) and the five burners are rocking my world. So far I’ve made a few meals, four loaves of bread and two cakes and it cooks beautifully and evenly. The rapid boil burner is excellent and the centre burner is huge for the big stock pot that I use to feed this family of eight.

This Door County Rustic Bread Pudding was my first creation!

I named it that simply because I bought the bread at the Door County Bakery and the cheese from the Door County Creamery.I’m very much enjoying diving into the food scene here in “Edible Door” and we are committed to meeting everyone who creates fine food on this peninsula. We haven’t even scratched the surface and it’s going to be a wonderful lifelong adventure. Of course, you can make this with your favourite bread and a variety of hard cheeses.

I used my shallow dutch oven but you can use a casserole for sure.

Let’s do this! This recipe was inspired by Yvette Van Boven, one of my favs.

I served this with a salad of crisp romaine tossed with a vinaigrette made of truffle infused olive oil, a pinch of sugar, lemon juice and pepper, I liked the truffle flavour with the mushrooms. I was shocked but we actually had a little leftover and the next morning it was phenomenal, folded into scrambled eggs with a fresh topping of cheese and homemade applesauce when served.

Oh gosh, I need to get back to Kramer. Writing this is making my mouth water and it’s about time to start dinner.