Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the Netherlands
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech Republic
SwedenSwitzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United States
Mexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Ticino
Dense cake made from day-old bread soaked in milk, with cocoa, amaretti, raisins, pine nuts and often a splash of grappa. Born from a desire not to waste bread, it is considered the quintessential Ticino sweet and every family has its own recipe.
Traditional sweet from Ticino
Also known as: torta da pan e lacc, torta di latte, torta leventinese, turta da ca
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Torta di pane — Ticino, Switzerland
Torta di pane is the dessert most closely associated with Ticino, the Italian-speaking canton in southern Switzerland. The recipe arose from the need to reuse bread: in the past bread was baked in large quantities every two weeks or more, and the stale loaves went into soup, into milk or into this cake. In many homes it was eaten at dinner with coffee and milk.
Over time, and with improving living conditions, the recipe gained ingredients. To the bread soaked in milk were added sugar, eggs, cocoa, crumbled amaretti, raisins, candied fruit, pine nuts and lemon zest, and many versions include a glass of local grappa. The names also vary: torta da pan e lacc, torta di latte or torta leventinese, as it appears in a 1920s cookbook in reference to Leventina, the valley in the northern part of the canton.
The preparation is simple but requires time. The bread is left to soak in milk for hours, then mashed until it forms a paste that receives the other ingredients. The mixture goes into a pan, is topped with pine nuts and bakes slowly, forming a dark crust outside and a moist, compact interior.
Torta di pane is present at village festivals and canton fairs, as well as in bakeries and pastry shops. In 1974, a competition held in Lugano received about 400 cakes from across Ticino, and Ticinese bakers and pastry chefs organized a cantonal torta contest, with finals at the Sagra dell'Uva.
Each family keeps its own version, and it is common to hear that no two torta di pane are the same.
Ticino
Considered the quintessential Ticinese sweet, found in homes, bakeries and village festivals across the canton.
Day-old bread, milk, sugar, eggs, cocoa, amaretti, raisins, pine nuts, candied fruit, lemon zest and often grappa; sometimes butter or chocolate.
Sliced, at room temperature, as a snack or dessert, with coffee, tea or a glass of milk.
All year round, especially in autumn and at village festivals; very common in the canton’s bakeries.
Your questions
Because it was created to reuse the bread that hardened at home, at a time when bread was baked in large quantities every two weeks or more.
Day-old bread softened in milk, sugar, eggs, cocoa, amaretti, raisins and pine nuts, and often a little grappa.
No. Versions vary from family to family and valley to valley, and they have different names, such as torta da pan e lacc and torta leventinese.
Flavors of Switzerland
The solid chocolate bar that made Switzerland a world reference from the 19th century onward, with mechanized production by Cailler, Daniel Peter’s milk chocolate in Vevey, and Rodolphe Lindt’s conching in Bern.
Melted cheese with white wine in a caquelon, kept warm over a burner, into which each person dips bread cubes on a long fork. Promoted as a national dish from the 1930s onward, it is served across Switzerland in the cold months.
Hard honey biscuit with almonds, hazelnuts, candied orange and lemon peel and kirsch, covered by a thin layer of sugar. Mentioned in Basel at least since 1711, it is the city’s most closely associated sweet specialty.
Large platter with several cooked and smoked meats and sausages, served over sauerkraut and green beans, with potatoes. It is the festive dish of Bernese cuisine, traditionally linked to the victory at Neuenegg in 1798.
Grated potato patty fried in butter until a golden crust forms on both sides. It was the breakfast of peasants in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, including the canton of Bern, and became a symbol of German-speaking Switzerland, even lending its name to the Röstigraben.
Dry, crunchy meringues served with Gruyère crème double, a thick cream with at least 45% fat. The quintessential dessert of the Bénichon feast, it is one of the symbols of the Gruyère region in the canton of Fribourg.
Chocolate cauldron bearing the coat of arms of Geneva, filled with marzipan vegetables and sweets, which is broken at the end of the Escalade celebration in December. It recalls the legend of Mère Royaume and the defense of the city on the night of December 11–12, 1602.
Shortcrust pastry tart, closed on top, filled with chopped walnuts coated in caramel and cream. It is the best-known sweet specialty of Graubünden, linked to pastry chefs who emigrated from the Engadine to work elsewhere in Europe.
Chard leaf rolls filled with spätzli-like dough and Bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef) or local salami, cooked in broth and milk and gratinated with cheese. Emblematic dish of Graubünden, originating in the Surselva, with as many recipes as there are families.
Puff-pastry dome filled with veal, meatballs, mushrooms and raisins in a creamy sauce. It’s named for the city and canton of Lucerne and is also called Fritschipastete, after the local carnival figure.
Half a wheel of cheese held close to the fire, with the melted part scraped onto the plate and served with boiled potatoes in their skins, pickled cornichons and pearl onions. It originated in Valais and was presented as a Valais national dish in 1909.
Distilled from wormwood, anise, and fennel, green or colorless, served diluted with cold water and turning cloudy when mixed. Production began in the Val-de-Travers, in the canton of Neuchâtel, at the end of the 18th century, and it was banned in Switzerland from 1910 to 2005.
Rustic purée of leek and potato cooked in water and white wine, served with saucisse aux choux, a smoked pork-and-cabbage sausage. It is the best-known culinary specialty of the canton of Vaud and is part of its intangible heritage.
Layered cake of almond meringue discs and a sponge soaked in kirsch syrup, with buttercream, covered with almonds and powdered sugar in a diamond pattern. Created in Zug by pastry chef Heinrich Höhn, who advertised it in 1915.
A mixture of soaked rolled oats, grated apple, walnuts or almonds, lemon and milk, created around 1900 by physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients at his clinic in Zurich. It gave rise to the muesli eaten worldwide.
Thin strips of veal sautéed and served in a cream, white wine and mushroom sauce. It’s the dish Zurich residents name first when talking about the city’s cuisine, almost always accompanied by rösti.
