Sicilian pizza vs focaccia — the difference
Both are thick, oil-happy pan bakes, which is exactly why they blur together — but Sicilian is a pizza, a tall sfincione crumb built to carry toppings, while focaccia is a wetter, even oilier dimpled bread that's perfectly content with nothing but salt.
Side by side
Every number below is the calculator’s, at each style’s default size:
| Sicilian | Focaccia | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Pan pizza | Pan pizza |
| Typical size | 33 × 33 cm pan | 30 × 22 cm pan |
| Dough per pizza | 817 g | 429 g |
| Hydration | 70% | 80% |
| Salt | 2.2% | 2.2% |
| Oil | 3% | 4% |
| Sugar | 1% | — |
| Oven | 230 °C / 446 °F | 220 °C / 428 °F |
| Flour | Bread flour, splash of semola | Bread flour or strong 00 |
| Protein | 12.5–14% | 12.5–14% |
What sets them apart
Sicilian. Sicilian packs more dough into the pan than any other style here — a tall, spongy, close-knit crumb under baked-in toppings, with a pinch of sugar to help a moderate oven color it.
Focaccia. Focaccia runs wetter and oilier still and behaves like bread: dimpled with oiled fingers so it pools olive oil, tender and open inside, finished as happily with coarse salt and rosemary as with anything else.
Which one to make
Go Sicilian. Choose Sicilian when you want pizza in square form — a thick, soft, oil-crisped base that expects sauce and toppings on top.
Go Focaccia. Choose focaccia when the bread itself is the point — to tear and dip, split for sandwiches, or eat warm straight from the pan.
The overlap is real: both are generous, oily pan doughs with airy crumbs, and an under-topped sfincione drifts toward focaccia territory fast. The fork is water, oil and purpose — focaccia carries more of the first two, skips the sugar, and lays less dough per square centimetre of pan. The calculator holds each one's density and percentages apart for you.
For the numbers behind the table, see the hydration and flour guides.
Questions from the counter
Is Sicilian pizza just focaccia with toppings?
Closer than most pizzas get, but no. Sfincione is its own dough: a touch drier and denser than focaccia, slightly sweetened for color, and proofed to carry a load. Pile pizza toppings onto true focaccia and it tends to slump into oily softness — the Sicilian preset is tuned for the job.
Which is easier for a beginner?
Focaccia — dimpling forgives every shaping sin, and there's no topping logistics, just oil and flaky salt. Sicilian only adds the topping step. Neither asks for any stretching skill, which is why the pan styles are the friendly end of the calculator.
Make either one
The calculator weighs and schedules both — pick a preset and it does the rest.
The clock is a suggestion. The dough is the boss. In bocca al lupo!
Impasto is a free pizza dough calculator for Neapolitan, New York, Roman, Sicilian, Detroit, thin crust and focaccia doughs — flour, water, salt and yeast weighed in baker's percentages, with the fermentation schedule written for you.