This style of pizza employs a dough similar to focaccia, light and fluffy inside with a crispy bottom layer. We have chosen two variations, which are not traditionally Sicilian, but still very tasty: Prosciutto di Parma with Ancho-chile-infused honey and an Argentinean classic – fugazza toppings (onions, mozzarella, olives and tarragon).
The bread recipe is adapted from Modernist Bread. The words used in bread making jargon may sound unfamiliar, check out our small bread making glossary if you’ve got any doubts!
Pizza Siciliana
Course: MainCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings1
hour25
minutesYields: 1kg of dough – 2 medium Sicilian pizzas (3-4 people)
Ingredients
- Part 1
Poolish:
50g bread flour
50g water
0.05g Instant dry yeast
- Part 2
330g water
3g Instant dry yeast
Poolish from step 1
535g bread flour
- Part 3
12g fine salt
5g Extra Virgin Olive oil
- Toppings
- Variation 1
Prosciutto di Parma
Ancho chili infused honey (heat up 70ml of honey with medium ancho chili cut in big pieces)
Dry Mozzarella, sliced in batons
Tomato sauce (half a can of tomato seasoned with salt and pepper)
- Variation 2 – Fugazza
1 small red onion and 1 small white onion (slice the onions finely, cook them on a pan with a small amount of olive oil until translucent)
Dry Mozzarella, sliced in batons
Handful of green olives
Handful of tarragon
Directions
- Part 1
- Mix all the ingredients together until combined.
- Let the poolish ferment for 12 hours in an air-tight container in a warm place.
- Part 2
- Take a big mixing bowl and combine water with the yeast. Stir until dissolved.
- Add the poolish and bread flour.
- Mix the ingredients until a shaggy mass is obtained.
- Cover the bowl with cling film and let it autolyse for 30min.
- Part 3
- After 30min of resting, add the salt and olive oil.
- Mix until the dough is homogenous.
- Transfer the dough into a lightly oiled plastic container and cover with a lid or cling film. Keep the dough in a warm place.
- Bulk fermentation
- Ferment the dough in an air-tight container in a warm place for 4h. During this time, you need to fold the dough by pinching and pulling the sides of the dough up and folding in towards the center. Repeat this process of folding 6 times in total. The first fold should happen after 1h of fermentation and from then on every 30min.
- Shaping
- Divide the dough in two. Take 2 cast iron pans and add an abundant amount of olive oil. Transfer the dough into the pans and drizzle a small amount of olive oil over it. Flatten the dough into a uniform sheet. Don’t push too hard to avoid tearing the dough. If the dough contracts, let it rest for 5min and then continue until the dough is evenly distributed. Prove the dough in 27C for 1 ½ – 2h or in 21C for 2-3h.
- Baking
- Preheat the oven to 230C. Place the pizzas in the oven and bake for 15min.
- Remove them from the oven and add the toppings as you please.
- Put the pizzas back to the oven and continue baking for 10min before serving.
- Depending on your oven, you might need to turn on the grill in the last few minutes to make all of the cheese melt.
Notes
- Preferment is a small portion of bread dough which is prepared in advance and let to ferment for several hours. The preferment allows for an extended fermentation which develops a more complex flavour of bread. Moreover, the extended fermentation is beneficial for the structure of the bread – the fermentation helps break down the bran which allows for a better web. The gases, which are produced during the proving process, will be trapped in the holes of that web (in bakers terminology: alveoli) resulting in a very fluffy texture.
- Poolish is a type of preferment which is made with equal parts of flour and water, and a small amount of yeast.
- Shaggy mass is a state of a dough produced when the water and dry ingredients are combined until obtaining a lumpy heterogeneous mixture.
- Gluten development is the level of interlinking between gluten strands. The higher it is the more extensible and the stronger the dough will be. This is desirable to obtain a dough that can support a very vigorous rise and large alveoli (such as dough with a high hydration).
- Autolyse is a process where the flour hydrates itself without any active kneading and breaks down its structure, releasing gluten and developing its network. That makes the dough more extensible which allows it to expand easily.
- Bulk fermentation is also called a first fermentation or primary fermentation, begins when the dough is just mixed. During this process, the yeast inoculated through the preferment develops creating a healthy flora of bacteria all throughout the dough. This will be crucial once the bread is proving since they produce the micro bubbles of CO2 that will initiate the rise of the bread.