Production of sweets and take-away food in Sicily follows the tradition of using pig lard (“strutto”) as an ingredient, since it makes gluten mass more crumbly, slows down loss of moisture and speeds up the raising process.

Of course there is no obvious way to be certain that a product does not include lard. A few general hints are given below, but we always recommend reading the ingredients labels (see specific page).

Pastry products
Lard is very often used to make croissants (“cornetti”), puff pastry (“pastafrolla”) food, pastry and sweets in general. On the other hand, sponge-cake (“pan di Spagna”) is usually lard-free.

Take-away snacks
Pizzas, arancine, roasted foods usually contain lard.

Bread
Soft wheat bread (“pane bianco”) is sometimes kneaded with lard for raising purposes; normally hard wheat bread (“pane rimacinato”) is not. A few bakeries sell bread with olives, which is kneaded with olive oil.

Pizzeria
Pizzerias sometimes use lard in order to raise the dough that is the base of pizzas.