The decadent, chocolate-laden Torta Novecento (cake nine hundred), was created by a renowned Canavese master pastry chef Ottavio Bertinotti to celebrate the turn of the 20th century – hence the name. This seemingly simple cake, consisting of a mousse-like chocolate filling sandwiched between two layers of cocoa-flavored sponge cake, eventually became so popular that Bertinotti, tired of countless knockoffs being passed off as the real thing, finally patented the secret recipe for Novecento in 1964.

In 1972, he sold the recipe rights to Umberto Balla, founder and owner of Pasticceria Balla. His family-run pastry shop has been making the famous Torta 900 ever since, thus establishing itself as a culinary landmark of Ivrea.