The mind behind the IACP-nominated, bread-baking newsletter Wordloaf, Andrew Janjigian is also a recipe developer, writer, teacher, and photographer. For 11 years, Andrew was a test cook and editor at Cook’s Illustrated, and he has developed recipes for publications as varied as Serious Eats, King Arthur Baking, and Epicurious.

Andrew Janjigian

Sfincione is one of the classic, “true” Sicilian pizzas, although it’s distinct from the Sicilian American rectangular pies we’re used to in the U.S.Like the American version of Sicilian pizza, most sfincione pizzas are thick-crusted pan pizzas, cut into squares. But instead of getting topped with a classic red sauce and mozzarella cheese, they’re topped with an onion-heavy, slightly sweet tomato sauce, followed by a layer of toma or caciocavallo, cow or sheep’s milk cheeses from southern Italy that have a sharper flavor profile and firmer texture that’s similar to provolone (which makes a decent substitute). The cheese is blanketed with breadcrumbs and seasoned with herbs, Pecorino Romano, and anchovies, a delicious combination that also shields the relatively dry cheese from the heat of the oven, preventing it from burning or drying out. The dough process used here is a little unorthodox since you preshape and then proof the dough in a rectangular cake pan. As the dough ferments, becoming more flavorful and gassier due to yeast activity, it becomes more extensible, and the dough fills the pan, which in turn makes transferring and gently stretching it to fit a sheet pan super simple.The other key to the recipe is the inclusion of semolina, a flour made from hard durum wheat. Used in pasta and bread, particularly in Sicily, semolina has a high concentration of non-gluten-forming proteins that produce a similar crunch in baked goods to bran, which isn’t possible with white flours.

Sfincione (Sicilian Pizza)