How to turn old bread into a brilliant Italian cake – recipe | Waste not

This Lombardian ‘village cake’ is simple, delicious and endlessly adaptable

Old sourdough is my secret ingredient. To stop it going mouldy, I take it out of any plastic packaging and keep it in the bread bin with plenty of airflow around it – that way, it will dry out slowly, rather than turning mouldy. Any odds and ends, meanwhile, I store in a cloth bag to use in various dishes, from pangrattato (or poor man’s parmesan) to strata, a savoury bread-and-butter pudding.

My new favourite recipe discovery for using up stale bread is today’s torta paesana, or village cake, from Lombardy. The best way I can come up with to describe it is that it’s a bit like a firm baked custard.

Torta paesana

If I still ran a cafe, this would go straight on my menu as a way to use up our stale bread, not least because it’s quite miraculous that such a thin custard made from leftover bread bakes into such a brilliant cake. At its simplest, it is utterly delicious, but the addition of a few pantry staples – nuts, spirits, raisins, chocolate chips, candied citrus, aniseed – turn it into quite the delicacy. I added rum-soaked raisins and mixed nuts, because that’s what I had to hand, but if you fancy going traditional, pine nuts and grappa-soaked raisins would be the ticket.

250g old bread (eg, sourdough, baguette, Italian bread)
550ml whole milk
50g raisins, or currants (optional)
1 tbsp grappa, rum or brandy (optional)
2 eggs, beaten
50g unsweetened cacao powder
100g brown sugar
80g almonds, or pine nuts or other nuts
Creme fraiche, or thick cream, to serve (optional)

Tear the bread into a bowl, cover with the milk, place a weight on top and leave to soak for 15 minutes, until the bread is very soft. Meanwhile, soak the raisins in grappa, rum or brandy, if using.

Mash or blend the bread and milk mix to a puree. Add the beaten eggs, cacao powder and brown sugar, then pulse-blend or mix well to combine – the mixture should be the consistency of custard. Stir in the nuts (save a few tablespoons to scatter on top) and the optional soaked raisins.

Line a 23cm flan or sealed cake tin with unbleached baking paper and fill with the custard (it’s runny, so the tin needs to be a solid one, rather than spring-form). Bake in a 190C (170C fan)/375F/gas 5 oven for 40 minutes, until firmly set. Remove and leave to cool fully in the tin before serving, or refrigerate overnight. It keeps well for three to five days in the fridge.