Concord Grape Crostata

When I lived in Florence, every corner bakery sold (in addition to wonderfully crusty loaves of unsalted Tuscan bread) a wide variety of pastries and not-too-sweet sweets. Among my favorites was a fruit crostata -- a whole sheet pan of buttery shortbread-type dough layered with fresh fruit jam under a lattice crust. This enormity was then cut into managable pieces, which were sold for about 1000 lire each.

Having some leftover grape "jam" from last night's dinner (thankfully, we had saved some before adding shallots and chicken stock), I thought it might be fun to recreate the crostata of my memories. I had once seen Mario Batali make something similar (but with a meringue-type almond filling) on TV, so I looked up the recipe. With a few changes, I used his crust recipe, layered it with the grape jam and some lovely latticework on top, and baked it. If only I had taken a picture!

The finished product was quite nice, though understandably different from the crostata I remember. My (or shall I say, Mario's) crust seemed more delicate and less sturdy than I recall -- this may be because I substituted some of the flour with ground walnuts. The concord grape jam delivered a nice kick of flavor, though in retrospect I probably should have used a thicker layer of jam to keep it from setting up quite so much while baking. Now that I've got the basics down, I'll play with the recipe a bit and report back when I'm perfectly satisfied.

Italian Jam Crostata
(dough courtesy of Mario Batali, and my own inventiveness)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup ground walnuts (or other nuts)
1/2 cup sugar
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 egg

Toss together the flour, 1/2 cup almonds, and sugar. Pulse with butter in Cuisenart until pea-sized. Add 1 egg and a pinch of salt and mix well, kneading slightly. Form the pastry into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to a 1/8-inch thick rectangle slightly larger than the size of your final crostata. Trim the edges, reserving the scraps, refrigerating, then using them to formlattice strips.

After your base is refrigerated and your lattice strips are cut and refrigerated, spread a layer of fresh fruit jam over the base, stopping about 1/2 an inch from the exterior edges. Make a pretty lattice crust on top and fold the reserved edges over to seal. Bake in a 375 degree oven until done (about 30 to 45 minutes).