Chocolate bread cake made with a few simple ingredients and low fat, is perfect for a healthy breakfast or for a tasty snack.
You have some stale bread and you don’t know what to do with it? There are really many ways to reuse leftover bread and not waste it!
For example you can let it harden and then make the bread crumbs useful for breading or for gratin dishes (for example Veal Cutlet Milanese or Tomato Gratin ).
Or you can soften it with water or milk and add it to vegetables or meat to make meatballs or stuffings, or to prepare the famous tuscan Pappa al Pomodoro or to make some delicious bruschette.
But, if you have a sweet tooth, Chocolate Bread Cake is certainly the most delicious and tastiest way to use stale bread. Let check the recipe now!
Chocolate Bread Cake Italian Recipe
- Prep Time: 30 Min
- Cook Time: 50 Min
- Yelds: 8
Ingredients
- 350g (12 oz) of stale bread
- 120 g (4 oz) of sugar
- 1l of milk
- 2 eggs
- 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
- a bit of icing sugar
Directions
Are you ready to start making Chocolate Bread Cake? Good! So first thing first break the stale bread into pieces. In the Italian traditional recipe, the pieces of bread must not be very small to give the cake more rustic appearance (1), but if you prefer a more creamy and refined mixture, you can grate the stale bread finely.
Pour the milk (2) and let the bread absorbs it completely until it becomes soft. Stir occasionally, mixing the bread with milk. It will take about 20 minutes (3).
When the bread has absorbed all the milk, add the eggs, (4) then sugar (5) and finally the cocoa powder (6) and stir everything very well, amalgamating the mixture.
Pour the mixture of bread and chocolate in a baking dish (about 22/24 cm in diameter) covered with baking paper (7). Bake at 180° (350F) for about 50 minutes (8). Let it cool and serve with icing sugar (9).
You can enrich Chocolate Bread Cake with other ingredients such as, amaretti, dried or fresh fruit, raisins, candied fruit, depending on your taste. After adding cocoa powder, add the ingredients you prefer.
“The cake of poor” or “Peasant cake”
Bread cake is a recipe of the ancient Italian tradition, especially in Brianza, an area of Lombardy.
Bread cake recipe dates back to the past, when, after wars or difficult periods, the bread was a precious thing, not to be wasted. Especially the farmers had the available ingredients, such as eggs and flour, to make this cake. A cake of the poor, but rich in taste and hearty.
The first recipes for this cake did not contain sugar. Sugar was indeed very expensive and not accessible directly in times of famine. To sweeten bread cake they used both fresh fruits (apples and pears) and dried fruits (walnuts, pine nuts and raisins).
I just tried this recipe, intending to make half the quantity as I didn’t have enough breadcrumbs. Then I found more breadcrumbs but in a senior moment went ahead and mixed the cake with the full quantity of breadcrumbs – actually about 11 oz, and some chopped almonds to make the weight – but half of everything else! (With slightly less sugar and more cocoa powder). It is still delicious. Thank you for the recipe!
I think that it is important to distinguish between stale and dry bread. Stale bread is not dry bread, and can be quite moist and will not soak up the milk as well old dry bread. So the weight measure will depend on what type of bread you are using. I tried this with half the amount of milk and break and used hot chocolate powder (2 Tbsp) and 2 Tbsp sugar, and two eggs and it was great, except that I left it in the oven too long and the tips of pieces of bread on the top got dried and hard.
I made this cake. It’s a great way to use up stolen bread ha ha. It was great it went down well in this corona virus times. Now in my bookmark I did add chopped almonds and chopped dried apricots.
I love the not so sweet taste and the rubbery texture.
Please note: “stale”, not “steal” bread.
🙂
Ahahahahahah thank you Doris! Please don’t steal the bread to make this recipe… 😀