Concord Grape Focaccia, the Loaf That Tastes Like September

Chef's Overview

Dear Chefs, Concord grapes show up for about two weeks and then vanish, which is why this loaf feels like an event rather than a recipe. Italians have been baking grapes into bread since long before anyone called it focaccia, and the reason it works is that heat concentrates the juice into something closer to jam while the rosemary and olive oil pull the whole thing back toward savory. The dough itself is deliberately wet and slack, which is what gives you that open, chewy crumb and the crisp bottom, and it also means you handle it with oiled hands rather than flour. Concord grapes have seeds, and this is the rare recipe where you leave them in, because they soften in the oven and add a faint bitterness that keeps the sweetness in check. Eat it warm, in torn pieces, standing up.

Two Weeks a Year, and Then They Are Gone

Concord grapes are not table grapes and anyone who has bitten into one expecting seedless sweetness knows it immediately. The skin slips off in one piece, the flesh underneath is almost jelly, the seeds are right there in the middle, and the flavor is so intensely grape that it tastes artificial, which is backwards since it is the flavor every artificial grape product has been imitating for a century.

Their season is brutally short, running a couple of weeks in September in most of the country, and they do not travel or store well, which is why you almost never see them outside farm stands and the better grocery stores. That scarcity is worth planning around. When they appear, buy more than you think you need, because the window closes fast and nothing else substitutes convincingly.

Ingredients You'll Need

The dough here runs at about seventy-five percent hydration, which is wet enough to feel alarming the first time and is the entire reason the crumb comes out open and chewy. Do not add flour to fix the stickiness. Use good olive oil, more than feels reasonable, since it is a flavor in this bread rather than a lubricant.

For the Dough

• 500g bread flour
• 375g water, room temperature
• 10g kosher salt
• 7g instant yeast
• 60ml olive oil, plus more for the pan and your hands

For the Topping

• 3 cups Concord grapes, stems removed, seeds left in
• 2 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
• 2 tbsp turbinado or raw sugar
• Flaky salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil to finish

Step 1: Mix the Dough and Walk Away

Whisk the flour, salt and yeast together in a large bowl, add the water and olive oil, and stir with a spatula until no dry flour remains. It will look like a shaggy wet mess and that is correct. Cover it and leave it alone for thirty minutes. There is no kneading in this recipe at all, because time and hydration do the gluten development for you while you do something else.

Step 2: Fold the Dough Four Times Over Two Hours

Wet one hand, reach under one side of the dough, stretch it up and fold it over itself, then rotate the bowl a quarter turn and repeat three more times. That is one set. Do a set every thirty minutes for two hours, four sets total, and you will watch the dough go from soup to something smooth and elastic that holds its shape. Wet hands rather than floured hands is the trick, since water stops the dough sticking without changing the hydration.

Step 3: Oil the Pan Generously and Shape

Pour three tablespoons of olive oil into a quarter sheet pan and spread it across the bottom and up the sides. Tip the dough in, oil your fingertips, and gently press it toward the corners. It will resist and spring back, which is normal, so leave it ten minutes and try again. Two or three rounds of this and it will reach the edges without tearing.

Step 4: Prepare the Grapes and Rosemary

Pull the grapes from their stems and leave them whole, then strip the rosemary leaves from their woody stalks and give them a rough chop so the oils release without turning to dust. Rosemary is a tough herb and a dull blade bruises it into something bitter and dark rather than slicing it cleanly. Our Praline 60 Damascus Petty Knife is the right size for herb work like this, which is the kind of small precise job covered in How Paring Knives Enhance Fine Garnish Work.

Step 5: Dimple the Dough and Load It

Oil your fingers again and press them straight down into the dough all over, right to the bottom of the pan, making deep dimples rather than gentle indentations. Those wells are where the oil and grape juice will pool. Scatter the grapes across the surface and press each one partway into a dimple so it sits in the dough rather than on top of it, then add the rosemary, the sugar and a good pinch of flaky salt.

Step 6: Proof Until Puffy, Not Doubled

Cover loosely and let it rise for forty-five minutes to an hour, until the dough looks inflated and wobbles when you shake the pan. Do not wait for it to double. An over-proofed focaccia collapses in the oven and gives you a dense bottom, and the visual cue you want is puffy and alive rather than enormous.

Step 7: Bake Hot Until the Bottom Is Crisp

Bake at 425°F for twenty-five to thirty minutes, until the top is deep golden and the grapes have burst and gone syrupy. Lift a corner with a spatula and look at the underside, which should be genuinely browned and crisp from frying in the pan oil. If the top is dark but the bottom is pale, move the pan to a lower rack for another five minutes.

Step 8: Cool Briefly, Then Cut Into Squares

Slide it out of the pan onto a rack immediately so the bottom does not steam and soften. Give it fifteen minutes, no more, because this bread is best warm. Cut it into squares with a serrated blade and a light sawing motion, since pressing down with a straight edge will compress the open crumb you worked to build. Our Noir 60 Damascus Bread Knife handles a crisp crust over a soft interior without crushing either, and the reason serrations matter here is laid out in What Makes Bread Knife Serrations Cut More Cleanly. If you are unsure which length suits your kitchen, Which Bread Knife Length Works Best for Home Bakers is worth a look.

Bread That Marks the Calendar

Bakers tend to talk about consistency, about the loaf you can make identically every week for years, and there is real satisfaction in that. This is the opposite kind of baking. You cannot make it in March, you cannot make it with other grapes, and if you miss the window you wait a year. That constraint is the whole appeal. Some things are better for being briefly available, and a bread you can only bake for two weeks in September gets remembered in a way that your reliable Tuesday sourdough never quite manages.