Torta paesana

Torta paesana (lit. 'village cake'), also known in English as black cake, milk cake or bread cake, is a cake of the Lombard cuisine, notably from Brianza. Its main ingredients are stale bread, milk and cocoa, often enriched with biscuits, amaretti di Saronno, sugar, pine seeds, raisins, candied orange and citron and aromatized with anise. As a traditional cake, without a codified recipe, it presents a great number of variants. It is homemade or sold in bakeries during autumn, for city festivals or religious celebrations.