Concord Grape Cake
The uva fragola (concord grapes) commingling with the heat created an intense saccharine smell that permeated the entrance of the supermarket. It hits you instantly as soon as you walk in. The only natural thing to do is to look for the source of that alluring fragrance and grab yourself a share of the dark purple grapes in clear boxes. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who fell into this little scenario. The rack of the concord grapes was already almost empty.
Concord grapes are a rarity in the shops. They are grown only to be
consumed as fruit, not for making wine. Apparently, the European Union
has a law that prohibits the commercialization of wines produced from
these grapes or any other non-European grapes that have low quality.
This law is supposed to retain a high quality on European wines. Since
this is a country big in viticulture, the vineyards are dedicated to the
ones that can yield good wines. Burgenland, Austria is the only
region in the EU, that can legally produce & sell fragolino,
the wine from concord grapes, because they maintain a strong opposing
position against this law. Elsewhere, they are produced in
Switzerland, Australia and the US. These fruit are indigenous to North
America, having been developed in Concord, Massachusetts in 1849 by
Ephraim Wales Bull. Whew! That's a lot of information in one day.
You can see all these in wikipedia under fragolino but it's only in Italian.
I remembered encountering some recipes
with these grapes at the internet before. Since I bought a kilo, it was
the perfect opportunity to put myself to work in the kitchen to come up
with a cake for once. I found a recipe for focaccia con uva fragola.
It is something common in Tuscany and is the only sweet focaccia that's
done. It is usually rectangular but since I didn't have a baking dish
with that shape, I used a round one. It came out looking like a cake,
not a focaccia. I followed every single step in the recipe and it even
came out looking like the original one. However, I think it should be
renamed. I would say that it's more a cake than a focaccia. Focaccia,
cake, focaccia, cake, whatever it is. It came out good and I'm happy
with the outcome.
Baking
is at the bottom of the list of my capabilities. I can come up with
very simple ones but really, I'm not meant to be a baker. So when I was
baking this cake, you can almost say that I have literally set camp
infront of the oven. I was watching the baking through the glass
window to see if it was rising and cooking like how it should be. And
when I took it out of the oven, it still looked well-risen and
beautiful. I had to leave it unbothered for a while to let it cool
before I can taste it. I had this uneasy feeling that it might swoosh
down, you know, deflate, while it's temperature was going down. I have
this paranoia with cakes. One minute they're beautiful, the next
minute, they look like a shriveled mass. When I was finally able to
taste it, I had to congratulate myself for a cake well done until I came
to the seeds of the grapes. Uuhhhmmm, didn't I seed them? If you do
bake this, please don't forget to seed the grapes unless you like the
added feature of grinding your teeth against the seeds.
Concord Grape Cake
Ingredients:Serves 8
- 400 g. flour (farina 00)
- 200 g. granulated sugar + more for sprinkling on top
- 6 large eggs
- 250 ml. sunflower oil (I used extra virgin olive oil.)
- 1 lemon, rind only
- 0.5 g. vanilla powder
- 16 g. baking powder
- about 1 kilo, uva fragolina (concord grapes), seeded if you have the patience
- Whisk the eggs with the sugar.
- Add the lemon rind, then the vanilla powder, oil and the flour. Sift from top to bottom.
- Add the baking powder then the concord grapes. Leave some grapes to put on top of the focaccia.
- Transfer to a buttered baking dish, square or round.
- Distribute the remaining grapes on the top of the mixture.
- Sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 1 hour.
