I read about this bread in Saveur Magazine. They say it’s a popular street food in Ragusa Sicily. It’s a thin dough that can be filled with a variety of fillings and is folded into a lasagna style loaf. It should be served when the loaf is still warm.

I can’t find the caciocavallo cheese that’s recommended for the recipe in my area so I substituted sliced provolone.

I never made Scaccia before so I followed Saveur’s recipe till it failed me.

I followed the dough recipe exactly and my ingredients wouldn’t form into a dough. It stayed like sand. So I added an extra Table of extra virgin olive oil and still the dough was no good. but was closer to dough. (picture below)

So I slowly added a 1/4 cup of warm water till it turned into a dough ball. The recipe worked after that. I note I don’t know if you will have the same problem with the recipe because I live in Arizona where the air is very dry and our water is very hard and that might be a factor in why many baking recipes don’t work out as written.

I think I can tweak the recipe slightly for next time. I might increase the tomatoes just slightly by adding just slightly more tomato solids and increase the cheese by 1-2 ounces using a blend of cheese. I do note if I used the  caciocavollo cheese I might have gotten a more cheesy filling.

The Scaccia came out delicious and I can’t wait to do variations of this recipe I got a million ideas.

Below is the recipe and I also included what I added to it if you find your ingredients  not coming out into dough the same way mine did.

Ingredients makes about 6 servings

1 1/4 teaspoon sugar (1/4 + 1t latter in the recipe for the sauce)

1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 cups durum wheat semolina flour

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (note I needed to use a total of three T)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

all purpose flour for dusting

2 cups whole pealed canned tomatoes in juice

1 garlic clove finely chopped

1/2 cup loosely packed basil -chopped

fresh cracked pepper to taste

fresh crushed salt to taste

8oz caciocavallo cheese

Directions

In a large bowl whisk together 1/4 teaspoon of sugar, the yeast and 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons lukewarm water. Let it stand until foamy about 10 minutes. Stir in semolina flour, i Tablespoon olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt until the dough comes together. Scrape the dough into a lightly floured surface and kneed until smooth, about 8  minutes. Transfer the dough to bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature about 2 hours until the dough doubles.(******note I added an additional 1 Tablespoon olive oil and 1/4 cup warm water that I added at the end of making the dough -I don’t know if you will need to add additional liquid)

Now make your tomato sauce. Tomatoes with juice get blended till smooth. In a small sauce pan add 1 Tablespoon olive oil over medium heat add garlic and cook tim it begins to brown and then add tomatoes and the one teaspoon of sugar. Bring to simmer and let it simmers till it reduces a bit. Remove from heat and add basil and well season it with salt and pepper.

Heat your oven to 450 degrees F and line a 9×5 loaf pan with parchment paper. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a 26×18 inch rectangle.

Follow my pictures.

 

Here you bring the right side over.

Now bring up the bottom.

Now place in you parchment lined loaf pan and pierce the top with a fork.

I folded parchment over the top.

Put in your 450 degree oven about an hour. I left mine in for 70 minutes. The Scaccia should be dark brown on the top and charred on edges.

When it comes out of the oven you need to pop it out of the pan on to a cooling rack. After 10 minutes turn it over and let it cool another 10 minutes and serve it warm.

Something fun and tasty.

My husband was very sad when this bread got finished. He said that I gotta forking make four loaves next time.