Fall in Florence—Schiacciata con uva

A few weeks ago—right at the start of grape harvest—one of our friends showed up at choir rehearsal with a large basket of grapes from the trellis on her back terrace. They sat patiently in the corner during rehearsal, me eying them from time to time hoping there was a chance we might get to nibble on a few before going home. Naturally when the singing was done and the chairs being put away, a small group gathered around the grapes, and being curious as to why exactly it was they showed up in the first place, I wandered over to inquire as to their purpose. “They’re for making schiacciata con uva,” I’m told. “Ooh!” I say, enthusiastically. I had just been thinking about attempting this grape foccaccia concoction that is a typical and well loved Florentine fall dessert, available only around harvest time because according to the Tuscans it must be made with wine grapes. “Do you want to try making some?” asks one of our friends. “Here, take a bunch home.” Yay! And so I became one of the lucky people sent home with a large bag of freshly picked wine grapes.

Now, of course, a recipe of some sort would be necessary given that we had only tried the stuff a handful of times and didn’t have a terribly clear idea of what it should be like. Fortunately, another friend who went home with a pile of grapes herself offered to e-mail me a recipe in the morning. I’m sure I could have easily found an American-ized recipe on a food blog as it seems that schiacciata con uva is a “thing” on the US foodie scene right now. But this being part of my mission to bake “typical”, traditional Florentine tasty things while in Italy, I figured I should try an Italian recipe for authenticity sake.

The problem with authentic Italian recipes is that they are rather vague in their instructions. Add “some” of this, a pinch of that, part of a “cup” (not cup in the American sense as in an actual measurement, but just any old cup), cook until done. That sort of thing. Which is fine, except that this recipe didn’t offer thoughts on how much water was supposed to go in the dough. However much I ended up putting in must have been fine because the end product seemed good to me. The basic idea is to make schiacciata (foccaccia) dough and put a bunch of grapes on it, and so if you knew what schiacciata dough was supposed to be like, you might not need to know about how much water to add. I’ve never managed to find a good recipe though, and thus I really wasn’t sure how wet the dough is supposed to be. Because this recipe called for rolling it out with a rolling pin, I figured it couldn’t be too wet and went with basically a regular bread dough texture and moisture level.

So here’s the vague recipe. My one piece of advice (other than make the dough seem like bread) is don’t forget the sugar (or leave most of it out because the grapes seem sweet). If you are using wine grapes (and you really really should), trust me, they’ll need some sugar. (I may perhaps have forgotten the sugar and needed to put the schiacciata back in the oven with some added on top to take the edge off).

(Translated from Italian)

Ingredients:

1 Kg Red grapes (Canaiolo)

400 g type “0” flour (all purpose is a fine substitute)

25 g active dry yeast (amusingly in Italian this is called lievito di birra—beer yeast)

200 g sugar

Olive oil

Salt

Directions:

In a bowl, dissolve the yeast in a ½ cup (Italian style) of warm (not hot) water and, constantly mixing, add the flour, 4 spoons (Italian style spoons—as in any spoon) of olive oil, 4 spoons of sugar, and a pinch of salt.

Mix well and let rise for about an hour in a warm oven (warm, but turned off)

Flour the table and roll out the dough with a rolling pin into a thin sfoglia (like when making fresh pasta), making approximately into the form of the rectangular pan you will cook it in.

Oil the pan with olive oil and put the dough in, leaving some of the dough hanging of the edges. Put about 700 g of grapes (washed and dried but with seeds in) on top of the dough. Sprinkle 2 spoons of sugar and 2 spoons of olive oil on top.

Fold the extra dough over on top of the grapes covering them completely (or almost). Put the rest of the grapes on top along with 2 more spoons of oil and 2 more spoons of sugar.

Bake in oven pre-heated to 350 degrees (ferenheit) and cook for about an hour.

This recipe is for a “modern” version of schiacciata con uva. The cookbook also explains a more traditional method, which is as follows:

Roll the dough out to about 1 cm thick, put in a well-oiled pan, cover with 800 g of grapes (red ones), and push them into the dough. On top, place another piece of dough rolled to be thinner than the bottom one (we’re talking about 2/3 of your dough on the bottom and about 1/3 on top, or maybe ¾ and ¼). Put the rest of the grapes on top and sprinkle with anice seed; let rise, then sprinkle the top (liberaly) with sugar and bake.

And here’s a translation of their background information on schiacciata con uva (not a clue who “they” are, by the way, because all I have a is a scan of single page from a cookbook).

Florentine and chiantigiana (from Chianti) recipe, characteristic of harvest; it is made in all bakeries and pastry shops in Florence during September and October.

In the past, the common versions were “heavy”: lots of dough and small amount of grapes; lately recipes have been becoming more refined.