Italian Milanese Chocolate Bread Cake | Torta di Pane Milanese
Updated: Oct 24
Milan throws away less bread than almost any Italian city, and the michetta is the reason: a hollow roll that is superb for four hours and stone dry by morning. Torta di pane is what a Lombard kitchen does with the surplus, and the Milanese version goes dark with cocoa.
The cocoa is the point of this cake and its one difficulty. It covers the flat taste of stale bread and it dries the crumb unless the milk rises to meet it.
Yield: 12 servings from one 9 inch (23 cm) round tin or an 8 by 11 inch (20 by 28 cm) rectangular one. Prep: 30 minutes. Soak: 2 hours. Bake: 55 to 65 minutes. Rest: 12 hours. Difficulty: easy. Region: Lombardy, Milan and the Brianza.
The Story
The michetta came to Milan with the Austrians. It descends from the Kaisersemmel of Vienna, carried south under Habsburg rule in the eighteenth century and reworked by Lombard bakers into something lighter and emptier than the original: a five lobed star with a hollow middle and walls barely thicker than a fingernail. That shape is wonderful to fill and hopeless to keep. In the humid air of the Po valley it turns leathery within hours. A city eating that roll every day produces a great deal of hard bread, and it built recipes around the consequence rather than complaining about it.
The cake changes name within a short radius of the Duomo. In Milan it is simply torta di pane. In the Brianza hills to the north it is michelasc, and out towards Lodi and Pavia it becomes torta paesana, baked for village fairs and eaten standing up with the fingers. What marks the Milanese one is chocolate. Cocoa reached Lombardy early through the Spanish court and was being drunk in the city by the seventeenth century, long before anyone could afford to bake with it. When cocoa powder became an ordinary grocery in the late nineteenth century it went straight into the cake that every household already made each week.
Panettone is the city's other contribution to it. From the twenty sixth of December, every kitchen in Milan holds half a panettone that nobody wants to eat plain any longer, and it goes into the tin in place of some of the bread. Cooks count on what it brings with it, candied peel, sultanas and a great deal of butter, and cut back the butter and the raisins accordingly. The cake was traditionally baked for the feast of San Giovanni in June and again in the slow days after Ferragosto, both moments when the ovens were lit anyway and the bread bin was full.
Ingredients
For the bread and milk
Stale michetta or other dry white bread, crusts included, 14 oz (400 g)
Leftover panettone may replace up to half the bread by weight
Whole milk, 4 cups (950 ml)
For the chocolate
Unsweetened cocoa powder, natural or Dutch process, 1/3 cup (40 g)
Dark chocolate, 70 percent, coarsely chopped, 4 1/4 oz (120 g)
For the batter
Granulated sugar, 3/4 cup (150 g)
Large eggs, 3
Unsalted butter, melted, 3 tbsp (40 g)
Amaretti biscuits, crushed, 2 3/4 oz (80 g)
Raisins or sultanas, 2 3/4 oz (80 g)
Grappa or dark rum, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Pine nuts, 1 1/2 oz (40 g)
Finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
Baking powder, 1 tsp (4 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For the tin and the top
Unsalted butter for the tin, 1 tbsp (15 g)
Dry breadcrumbs for the tin, 2 tbsp (15 g)
Pine nuts for scattering, 2 tbsp (15 g)
Granulated sugar for the top, 1 tbsp (12 g)
Preparation
Steep the raisins
Put the raisins in a small bowl with the grappa and 2 tablespoons of warm water and leave them there through the soak that follows. They should finish plump and almost dry. Whatever remains in the bowl goes into the batter with them.
Soak the bread in all the milk
Tear the bread into walnut sized pieces, put them in a large bowl and pour over all 4 cups (950 ml) of the milk, warmed to about 105°F (40°C). Press the bread under the surface with a plate, cover the bowl and leave it 2 hours at room temperature. A plain version takes 3 1/3 cups (800 ml); the extra is for the cocoa.
Mash the bread, then sift the cocoa into it
Work the soaked bread with your hands or a stiff whisk into a thick, uneven mash, stopping while pea sized pieces are still visible. Now hold a fine mesh sieve over the bowl and sift the cocoa straight onto the wet mash in three additions, working each in before the next goes through. The wet, coarse crumb catches every fall of powder and rubs it apart. Tipped onto a smooth batter it skins over into lumps.
Melt half the chocolate and chop the rest
Melt half the chopped chocolate, about 2 oz (60 g), over barely simmering water to around 115°F (46°C). Leave the rest in pieces the size of a small fingernail. The melted share darkens the cake evenly; the chopped share softens into richer pockets.
Build the batter
Beat the sugar into the cocoa and bread mash, then the eggs one at a time, then the melted butter, the lemon zest and the salt. Add the melted chocolate and mix until the colour is even. Sift the baking powder over the surface and fold it through last.
Fold in the amaretti, fruit and nuts
Fold in the crushed amaretti, the steeped raisins with their liquid, the chopped chocolate and the 1 1/2 oz (40 g) of pine nuts, in about eight strokes. The amaretti bring the bitter almond note that makes this taste Lombard rather than merely chocolate. Leave them in lentil sized pieces.
Butter the tin, then read the batter
Butter the tin heavily and dust it with dry breadcrumbs instead of flour. Spoon the batter in without pushing it about, then leave it a minute and watch. A properly hydrated batter settles and levels itself, and the ridges left by the spoon sink away on their own. If the surface keeps every peak exactly as you dropped it, the cocoa has taken more milk than the bread could spare. Beat in whole milk 2 tablespoons at a time until it relaxes and flattens by itself.
Bake it low and slow
Heat the oven to 340°F (170°C) with a rack in the lower third. Scatter the remaining pine nuts and the tablespoon of sugar over the top and bake 55 to 65 minutes. It is done when the crust has set matte with fine cracks, the edges have shrunk from the tin and a skewer comes out with moist crumb clinging to it, about 195°F (90°C) inside.
Cool completely, then rest overnight
Leave the cake in its tin on a rack until it is thoroughly cold. Cover it with a cloth and leave it at room temperature at least 12 hours before cutting. Cut too early it tastes wet and of almost nothing. The next day it is firm, sliceable and far more chocolatey.
Plating
This cake is cut in squares, never wedges, even out of a round tin. Trim the outer half inch from a rectangular cake and cut the rest into pieces about 2 1/2 inches (6 cm) across, wiping the blade every few cuts because the chocolate pockets drag. A rectangular tin is the better choice for that reason.
Serve it cool or at room temperature, never warm. Around 64°F (18°C) is where the chocolate is firm enough for a clean edge while the amaretti and the lemon still come through. Straight from the refrigerator the cocoa goes mute and the crumb turns claggy.
Put nothing else on the plate. A dusting of cocoa is the only decoration this cake has ever carried. If a service wants something alongside, unsweetened mascarpone loosened with a spoonful of milk belongs to the same region and adds no further sugar.
Professional Technique
Cocoa does two jobs in a bread cake and they pull in opposite directions. The first is concealment. Stale white bread soaked in milk and baked tastes of very little: faintly sweet, mostly flat. Bitter cocoa covers that flatness completely, which is why the Milanese cake tastes finished where a plain one tastes like thrift. The second job is unwanted. Cocoa is a dry powder with almost no fat in it and it takes liquid out of everything it joins, so the spoonful that saves the flavour also dries the crumb.
The correction is arithmetic and you do it at the start, not at the end. Reckon on roughly 1/2 cup (120 ml) of extra milk for every 1/3 cup (40 g) of cocoa going into the tin, which is why this recipe soaks the bread in 4 cups (950 ml) where the plain version asks for 3 1/3 cups (800 ml). Add cocoa to a batter calibrated without it and the cake bakes short, tight and powdery, and no milk stirred in afterwards will undo it.
How the powder goes in matters as much as how much milk meets it. Sift the cocoa through a fine mesh sieve directly onto the mashed soaked bread, while the mixture is still coarse and lumpy, and the crumb catches each fall of powder and rubs it apart. Pour the same cocoa onto a smooth finished batter and the top layer wets instantly, seals itself and protects the dry powder inside, giving grey lumps that survive any beating. The test for the result comes in the tin: a batter with enough liquid in it levels itself within a minute, and one that holds every spoon mark is telling you the cocoa won.
Texture and Moisture Control
The target is a close, damp, faintly chewy crumb that takes a clean cut edge. With almost no flour, the cake is held by egg protein and fat rather than gluten, and doneness is judged by temperature instead of by a dry skewer. About 195°F (90°C) at the centre is the mark. Bake to a genuinely clean skewer and the middle has passed 205°F (96°C), the eggs have shed their water.
Moisture keeps moving after the oven, which is why the overnight rest counts for more here than in an ordinary cake. Straight out of the tin the free water sits mostly in the bread fragments. Over twelve hours it equalises and the crumb firms from wet to dense. Keep the cake covered but not sealed, under a cloth or loose foil, since a closed box traps condensation on the crust and softens the only crisp thing it has.
The state of the bread changes the starting point. Bread that went leathery in damp August air still holds water and drinks less than the recipe offers. Bread dried in a heated winter kitchen is brittle and takes more. Judge the batter, not the measure, and adjust with milk 2 tablespoons at a time, only ever upwards.
Professional Mise en Place
Nothing here is a la minute. The cake is baked the day before it is wanted and improves overnight, which makes it one of the simplest desserts to hold in a service.
Equipment and tools
Large bowl and a plate that fits inside it to weigh the bread down
Fine mesh sieve for sifting the cocoa, and a stiff whisk
Heatproof bowl for melting chocolate, and an instant read thermometer
Round 9 inch (23 cm) tin or a rectangular 8 by 11 inch (20 by 28 cm) tin
Long thin bladed knife for cutting the rested cake
Prepared ahead
Bread torn and dried 2 to 4 days ahead, uncovered on a rack
Raisins steeped in grappa, up to 3 days ahead, sealed and refrigerated
Cake baked and rested a full day before service, left in its tin
Amaretti crushed and pine nuts weighed on the morning of the bake
Service setup
Cake cut into squares within the hour before service, kept under a cloth
Hot water by the board, since the chocolate drags on a cold blade
Cocoa in a sieve for a last dusting over the squares
Squares held at about 64°F (18°C), never refrigerated before serving
Chef Tips
Dry the bread on purpose. Tear it up and leave it uncovered on a rack for two to four days, or give it 15 minutes at 250°F (120°C) with the oven door propped open. Bread that hardened inside a closed bag is damp within its own crust and makes a gluey batter.
Use Dutch process cocoa for the near black colour the best Milanese versions have. Alkalised cocoa is darker and far less acidic, which suits a batter with no acid ingredient in it. Natural cocoa gives a redder, sharper result.
With leftover panettone, drop the added butter to 2 tablespoons and halve the raisins. Panettone arrives already rich in butter and carrying its own sultanas and peel, and the greasy oversweet cakes are the ones where nothing was adjusted.
Bake it in a rectangular tin for a crowd. The portions come out even, the corners give you the chewy edges, and the shallower depth bakes faster. Start checking at 50 minutes and trust the thermometer over the clock.
Common Mistakes
Adding cocoa without adding milk. The powder takes its liquid from the only place available, the soaked crumb, and the cake bakes tight and powdery. Raise the soaking milk by about 1/2 cup (120 ml) for every 1/3 cup (40 g) of cocoa.
Tipping the cocoa onto a finished batter. The wetted surface seals and shields the dry powder inside, leaving grey lumps that no whisking removes. Sift it onto the coarse mashed bread instead, in three additions.
Ignoring a batter that holds its spoon marks. That is a dry mixture telling you so before it bakes. Beat in milk 2 tablespoons at a time until the surface levels itself within a minute.
Baking until the skewer comes out clean. With this little flour a clean skewer means the centre has gone past 205°F (96°C) and the eggs have shed their water. Look for moist crumb clinging to it, around 195°F (90°C).
Cutting it the same day. The crumb is still uneven and the cake tastes wet and flat, which is why people wrongly blame the recipe. Twelve hours at room temperature transforms it and twenty four is better.
Wine Pairing
Sangue di Giuda dell'Oltrepò Pavese DOC: The Lombard bottle that belongs on this table, made from Croatina and Barbera south of Pavia and left gently sweet and lightly frothy. The bubble lifts a crumb that sits heavy on the palate, and its blackberry fruit meets the chopped dark chocolate without either giving ground. Modest alcohol, which matters after a long lunch.
Moscato di Scanzo DOCG: Italy's smallest DOCG, from one hill outside Bergamo, a red Moscato dried on racks before pressing. Rose, dried plum and a distinct sage note, and that herbal edge is the reason it works: it cuts across the sweetness of the amaretti rather than doubling it. Enough structure behind the sugar to follow a cake this concentrated.
Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG: The dry choice, and the most interesting. Nebbiolo dried three months in the Alpine north of the region, finishing with no residual sugar yet tasting of dried fig, tobacco and cocoa, so it reads as sweet beside the cake while scrubbing the fat away. Its firm tannin needs the chocolate to soften it.
Recioto di Soave DOCG: A sweet white from dried Garganega, honeyed and almost waxy in weight but carrying a fine thread of acidity that no sweet red supplies. That acidity is its argument: it resets the palate between squares of a cake that coats the mouth with cocoa and fat, and its candied citrus picks up the lemon zest.
Storage & Reheating
Kept whole at room temperature under a cloth, the cake holds 4 days and is best on the second and third. It does not want refrigeration: cold hardens the cocoa butter and flattens the aroma. Above 77°F (25°C), refrigerate it sealed for up to 6 days and bring each square back to about 64°F (18°C) before serving.
Once cut, press foil against the exposed faces, or store the squares in one layer with parchment between them and the lid. Left open, the cut surfaces dry to a hard crust within half a day. Keep it away from anything strongly aromatic.
It freezes very well. Cut it into squares, wrap each in film and then foil, and hold at 0°F (minus 18°C) for up to 3 months. Thaw still wrapped, about 2 hours at room temperature, so condensation forms on the wrapping. A thawed square is improved by 6 to 8 minutes in a 300°F (150°C) oven, then cooled again.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 12 squares from one full tin:
Calories: 370 kcal
Total Fat: 16 g
Saturated Fat: 7 g
Trans Fat: 0.2 g
Unsaturated Fat: 8 g
Cholesterol: 60 mg
Sodium: 210 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 48 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 27 g
Added Sugars: 19 g
Protein: 9 g
Lactose: 3.8 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, magnesium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, vitamin B2
These figures are estimates. Sodium comes almost entirely from the bread and swings by several hundred milligrams with how heavily the loaf was salted.
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