Flammkuchen is a thin and crispy pizza topped with a savory cheese and cream fondue, onions, and speck: a true delight! Whenever a typical or traditional recipe arrives here, complaints arrive promptly as well, but I assure you that before venturing into preparing something that is not within my specific knowledge, I do research: I study the origins, the history, and all the existing variants. Obviously, I can’t prepare them all, so I choose one: usually, it’s the one that most closely matches my tastes. It’s not the right cheese. Speck is not used but bacon. No to red onion (I know, but I wanted to eat it and I only had that at home). Yeast goes in because it was made with bread dough. And yes, you need sour cream. Fresh cheese is needed. Quark is used. You didn’t put herbs. Ah no! It’s made with mashed potatoes, lard, and onions. These are all variants of the same recipe found in the region where flammkuchen originated. So calm down and prepare it as you like! I chose to follow the instructions of Stefano Cavada and the result really satisfied me. For curiosities about this specialty, I refer you to the end of the article.
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Rest time: 15 Minutes
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 1 person
- Cooking methods: Electric oven
- Cuisine: German
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup water
- 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup cooking cream
- 1/4 cup fontina cheese (grated)
- 3.5 oz speck strips
- 1/2 yellow onion (sliced)
- as needed semolina flour
Tools
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Baking Tray
- 1 parchment paper
- plastic wrap
- 1 small saucepan
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Grater
Steps
In the bowl of the stand mixer, but you can also knead by hand, combine the flour, water, extra virgin olive oil, and salt. Knead for seven minutes until you get a nice smooth and homogeneous dough. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for fifteen minutes.
Grate the fontina cheese. In a small saucepan, heat the cream until it almost boils, remove it from the heat, incorporate the cheese and stir with a spatula until well melted.
Sprinkle the work surface with semolina flour and roll out the dough into a thin sheet using the rolling pin. Transfer the sheet onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper, spread it with the cheese fondue, add the sliced onion (I used red onion because I only had that at home, but choose a yellow or white onion) and the speck strips. Bake in a preheated oven at 482°F for 12 minutes.
Serve the flammkuchen hot.
Curiosities
Flammkuchen is an Alsatian specialty (Alsace is a French region bordering Germany and Switzerland), also widespread in Germany, which is why its name is German, but it is also known as Alsatian pizza or tarte flambée (flamed tart). Flammkuchen was cooked in wood-fired ovens with an open flame. In the towns or villages of Alsace, people gathered once a week or every fifteen days to bake bread for everyone for the whole week in the communal wood oven. While waiting for the flames to form embers, these “pizzas” were cooked. That’s why tarte flambée: it was cooked with an open flame. It is also said that a baker, tired of baking them plain like simple bread, added cream, sour cream, and bacon on top before baking.
Even today, at bakeries that use a wood-fired oven, flammkuchen is baked before bread, and its baking helps determine if it’s the right time to bake the bread.
It was made with bread dough, so initially it had yeast, but since it has to be rolled out thinly, it’s not worth adding it, and it turns out just fine without it, in fact many recipes don’t require it.
Is it “the flammkuchen” or “the flammkuchen”? I have found it written both ways, but I can’t tell you which is correct because there isn’t a precise explanation for it.
