What we did for love...

In my days, when I weighed 100 lbs with clothes on these pastries were easy to make and easy to eat.Just imagine the butter and sugar necessary to make these crispy pastries.  My mother's favorite, torta di uva, grape torte, was served at Easter.  I have wanted to make one of these for a long time.

The trouble is not finding a recipe these days.  Just google and you can find it! The trouble is justifying this much goodness for just the two of us.  Even if I make half the torte, we'll end up eating the entire thing within days.

What to do?

Ingredients for the dough:
1lb of seedless grapes
3 egg whites
1C of sugar
1/2 C of lemon juice

Ingredients for the topping:
1/8 ts salt
zest from rind of one lemon
1 egg yolk
1 egg
1/4 C butter
3/4 C sugar
2 C flour
4oz of ground almonds

Dough:
Sift flour and sugar into a medium bowl. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs form. Add egg, egg yolk, zest, salt. Mix with a fork to form a soft dough. Cover dough and let rest in refrigerator for 20'.
Roll dough into a circle and line an ungreased springform pan, curling the ends.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 10 minutes.

Filling:
Halve the grapes. Whip egg whites until stiff; fold in sugar, lemon juice and almonds.
Carefully, fold in the grapes.
Fill the baked shell and return to oven for 30 minutes at 350F.

Remove from oven and allow it to cool on wire rack.

Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.