Sfincione — Palermo's spongy tray pizza with onion-anchovy sauce and breadcrumbs

Dough spec

Flour

Semolina rimacinata (finely re-milled durum semolina)

Hydration

75%

Salt

2.2%

Oil

6%

Scale this guide

This dough is sized to the tray, not a per-pizza ball weight — use the pan/tray dough calculator with your tray's dimensions and the Thick and airy thickness setting (the same one used for Sicilian-American's similarly thick, airy crumb) for a different tray size. Open the full dough calculator for more control, or the fermentation schedule builder to work backwards from a target bake time using this guide’s room temperature long fermentation approach.

Steps

1. MixHand or machine mix flour, water, salt, and oil to a soft, enriched dough — semolina rimacinata alone is usually too weak-gluten to work with on its own, so this dough is conventionally blended with a bread flour rather than used as a single flour (see editorial note).
2. Bulk fermentBulk ferment at room temperature for 2-4 hours, until visibly risen.
3. ShapePress the dough by hand into a generously oiled rectangular tray, working it out to the corners — a soft, forgiving dough similar in handling to Sicilian-American's.
4. Final proofProof briefly in the tray, around 1-2 hours, until puffed.
5. TopSpread a robust tomato-onion sauce enriched with anchovies over the dough, then scatter pieces of provolone or caciocavallo across the surface — unlike Sicilian-American's full mozzarella layer, sfincione's cheese is scattered sparingly rather than laid as a continuous cover.
6. TopFinish with a generous scattering of dry breadcrumbs over the top — this is sfincione's defining and most distinctive step, with no equivalent in PizzaHQ's other tray-pizza guides.
7. BakeBake at around 220-250C for 20-30 minutes, until the breadcrumb topping is toasted golden and the base is well risen and cooked through.
8. RestRest briefly in the tray before cutting.
9. ServeCut into squares and serve warm or at room temperature, in keeping with its traditional festive, room-temperature service.

Bake notes

The breadcrumb finish is what most reliably separates a genuine sfincione from a plain tomato-and-cheese tray pizza — don't treat it as an optional garnish.