The Traditional Sweet Italians Bake In September In Tuscany: Schiacciata All'uva

So today I'm making schiacciata aluva and this is, it's like, schiacciata is like a focaccia but it's thinner and chewier and it's quite a famous bread in Tuscany but the schiacciata aluva is a very Tuscan sweet baked good which uses two layers of dough, sometimes two layers, sometimes one, but a lot of times two layers with grapes and the grapes are obviously ripe and ready and sweet because September is the season, is the month of la vendemmia which is the big grape harvest and in fact they are getting ready to harvest all the grapes to make wine here in Tuscany. The thing about schiacciata aluva, sometimes I have been of the opinion that if I'm going to eat a sweet why wouldn't I just eat cake rather than a bread that is pretending to be a cake but that depends on which schiacciata aluva you get because some people make it with a very small quantity of grapes and it's very high like a proper focaccia not a schiacciata and then it just feels like you're eating a lot of bread whereas I like mine to be really juicy and laden with fruit and then it becomes something much more dessert like at least in my opinion and if you have the two layers you sort of get like a jammy layer like a layer of grape marmalade in between and then on top the roasted grapes and then you have some some olive oil on top and sometimes some rosemary and it feels just all of those flavors the olive oil rosemary and grapes is so simple and so rustic and and you can really feel transported to 100 years ago when well they still do it now but it feels to me very old-fashioned like that idea of these women just making great slabs of schiacciata in abundance for all the people the men and women who are working in the fields in the vineyards just picking all the grapes and and doing different jobs for la vendemia the grape harvest and it's such a lovely culmination of the flavors of Tuscany and it's it's rustic but when I feel like when the ratio of fruit to bread or dough is right it can feel very juicy and sweet and more like a strudel without like puff pastry obviously because it's still it's not flaky it's it's still a dough so that is what I'm aiming for I'm sorry I'm so sorry I'm so out of breath pregnancy uh but uh but that is I think that just comes down to also how thin you spread out your dough and then just how much uh how much fruit you add how many grapes you add if I think of September I think of schiacciata luva this is the the dish of the of the month everyone is just preparing for la vendemia here because we have um we have vineyards it's just down that way and um it's lovely now we go past and and they look like they're so juicy and ripe and and ready but now it's always a time when everyone's looking at the looking at the weather and we had a little bit of rain and obviously you want to if you're a farmer or if you have vineyards you want to choose very carefully the time that you uh that you pick the grapes how peaceful just sitting here in the sun picking grapes fortunately it's it's become a little bit cooler but it's still very hot um it's it was so it was so hot before that we couldn't eat outside even and now finally we can have it we have our dinners in the evening out here at this table and I can still sit outside and cook which I love because I love filming in the natural light uh but previously it has was just like that heat wave and now now it doesn't certainly doesn't feel like autumn doesn't feel like fall um but it just feels like a more pleasurable summer that is a heat that one can enjoy and I am looking forward to autumn though looking forward to all the dishes that I can cook see it's all gone all nice and puffy I was just checking if the yeast was still good so this is good it's foaming up and telling me that it's still uh not past its use by date because it was an old packet that I didn't have had for a while so I wasn't sure and now I'm just going to add in some flour I'm not an expert bread maker but I do find that doing a little bigger or a little pre-fermented yeast water and flour and leaving it for two to three hours or even overnight helps develop a more complex flavor I was short on time so I only left this for two and a half hours I think but it still did expand quite a bit is two kilograms exactly now I mix a new batch of flour yeast water olive oil and sugar I add the salt a bit later when I'm kneading it so it doesn't mix directly with the yeast and I almost forgot to add the pre-fermented dough ball I break it up into pieces so it distributes evenly I moved over to the marble table to knead the dough I basically kneaded in three parts uh tending to jump Franco in between covering the dough and leaving it to rest for 10 to 15 minutes each time and you'll find that each time you come back the dough will be smoother it gives it time to rest and means it doesn't base I find it easier to roll into a sheet of baking paper so I can transfer it to the tray I'm using two kilos of grapes but honestly I think I could have used even more some sugar olive oil and rosemary and then another layer of scotchata I pinch the edges to seal it all in and more grapes I gently press the grapes deep into the dough sugar olive oil and then leave this for one to two hours to rise a bit more and then I put it in an oven preheated to 170 degrees celsius until it is golden it's a bit hard with this one because it should be still wet and juicy in the center where the grapes have softened but I lifted a corner to check that the bottom was golden underneath and then I left it overnight to cool it tastes even better the next morning the delicious sticky juice of the grapes has settled into the dough and although I'm off sugar for the pregnancy I did have one bite just to test it and it was so crisp on the edges but soft and and fragrant with olive oil rosemary and sweet roasted grapes I took this to a lunch full of Florentines that day as dessert and they devoured it I love messy unctuous food like this which really has changed so little in the hundreds of years Italians have been eating it some say a version of scotchata luva was even made in Etruscan times if you enjoyed any of this episode I would so love for you to give the video a little like thank you for sharing your time with me thank you to my patrons and I'll see you next episode alla prossima