Jamming

I was completely enchanted by these Concord grapes a few weeks ago when I visited the greenmarket by Lincoln Square. They were deep, midnight violet hiding under a gossamer bloom and intensely perfumed. The strong scent of sheer purple was discernible from a distance and provoked flashes of childhood’s gloppy grape jelly, drippy grape popsicles, and intoxicating grape juice.

The grapes’ velvety jackets are easily slipped off to reveal chubby, translucent green flesh with rather large, crunchy seeds. I usually chew right through these, but while testing this week’s Concord Grape Cake for Serious Sweets I found that they created too much of a distraction. In that recipe, they are removed, leaving you nothing but tender cake mottled with small explosions of grape and a thick topcoat of made-from-scratch jam.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 at 7:53 am and is filed under Baking, Food Photography, Food styling, Fruits, I love New York, Serious Eats: Sweets, Sweet Things, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.