Flammkuchen

Thanks to Dana (of Danalicious) and Ann (of Thibeault's Table), I finally tried this Flammkuchen.  To my mind, it's basically a German pizza.  A thin crust, topped with a seasoned creme fraiche, sauteed onions, and crisp pieces of bacon.  Doesn't the sound of that just evoke a heavenly aroma??!

I have to admit that I bastardized the recipe a bit.  Just a bit.  I made a regular pizza dough that I let proof for a couple of days in the refrigerator for the base.  And since I had no creme fraiche on hand, I decided to use sour cream to coat the crust.  No harm, no foul.  It worked perfectly.  The other thing I changed was to bake the crust for about 12 minutes before adding the sour cream and toppings.  The crust was nice and crispy, and the topping was amazing, with the sweet onions and the salty, smoky bacon.  Absolutely delicious!  I never would have thought that something so relatively simple good be so good - I was surprised!  Thanks so much to Dana for discovering the recipe and recommending it to all of us!!

Flammkuchen
(from Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst)

For dough*:
2 cups Flour
2.5 Tbsp Oil
2/3 cup Water
1/4 tsp salt

For topping:

1 cup crème frâiche (I used sour cream)

1 onion (can be red or sweet onions)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 pound bacon
salt & pepper to taste
1 clove garlic

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Combine ingredients for crust. The dough shouldn’t be sticky and should turn smooth and slightly stretchy. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible and place on a baking sheet or pizza pan or stone.  (*I used a French bread dough, letting it rise as usual.  I rolled out a about one-third of the dough into a circle and placed it on a perforated pan and baked at 500 F. for 12 minutes.  I then topped the crust and returned the crust directly to a baking stone - without the pan - for an additional 10 minutes.)

Thinly slice onions and sauté in butter until clear (don’t caramelize). Cook bacon until crisp. (Original author's note:  I prefer to cook bacon in the oven for a nice even crispness.) Finely chop garlic and add it with seasonings to the cream.

Spread the creme fraiche over the rolled out dough and top with the bacon and onions.

Bake for around 10-15 minutes, or until the dough has begun to create bubbles and you see nice browning (you don’t want burnt!).

For Printable Recipe, Click Here