Flammkuchen Recipe - Alsatian Tarte Flambée

TL;DR

Flammkuchen is a pizza-like dish with cream, bacon, and onions as the main original topping ingredients. Flammkuchen is also known as Tarte Flambée/Flammekuechen and is primarily an Alsatian French “pizza” dish.

The region of Alsace is touching the German Rheinland and Baden Würtemberg regions to the east and the Swiss Basel Aargau and Bernese Oberland regions to the South. Therefore, Flammkuchen is a traditional French, German, and Swiss dish.

If you ever travel to these regions, you will see that the Flammekuechen can be commonly found in restaurant menus in the French, German, and Swiss corners of Europe.

Originally, the tarte flambée was a home meal, baked in a bread oven in the village. When the bread oven was started, the heat would be too high for the regular bread. At that point, the Flammkuchen would be quickly baked in high heat for a few minutes only.

The name Flammkuchen comes from the words Flamme (flame) and Kuchen (cake). The French word tarte flambée reflects the same meaning. A Flammkuchen was square and would be eaten rolled up with the finger.

Years ago in a restaurant in Colmar, I was eating my Flammekuechen with a fork and knife when the lady of the house came over and explained that it was eaten by hand.

See more traditional Alsatian food specialties.

Topping ideas

While the Alsatian Tarte Flambée with bacon and onions is known to be the authentic Flammkuchen, it is, of course, not a rarity to see other versions emerging in Alsace itself and the neighboring German and Swiss regions.

In Basel, Switzerland, I came across Flammkuchen with sausages and Gruyere Cheese.

Besides the original bacon (French Lardon) and onion Tarte Flambée, I enjoyed the sausage version a lot with a glass of cold beer.

Traditional variations:

• Strassbourg Tarte Flambée - With Sauerkraut & sliced Strassbourg sausage topped (another favorite of mine)
• Salmon Tarte Flambée
• Variation with Leek and Onions
• Variation with cheese only, such as Emmental, Münster, and Gruyere
• Sweet Flammkuchen with apple, pears, and eventually Calvados
• Würtemberg version topped with potato mash and onions
• Forestière Tarte Flambée with Mushrooms

The way you top your Flammkuchen is up to you. I tend to enjoy a topping which is rather light but with small pieces of meat added. You can get super creative with your Tart Flambée topping!

Progressive topping ideas:

• Ruccola and Gorgonzola Cheese
• Dates and Fetta Cheese
• Pear, Gorgonzola, and Chanterelle Mushrooms
• Zucchini and Pumpkin Seeds
• Apple, Goat Cheese, and Walnuts
• Mushroom, potato slices, and vegan cream to make a vegan Flammkuchen
• Hokkaido Pumpkin and Pumpkin
• Chocolate Banana for a sweet dessert Flammkuchen
• Strawberry and Vanilla Ice cream Flammkuchen

Process Overview

The Flammkuchen is a simple dough that resembles a Tortilla/Chapati/Roti dough. It's made of flour, salt, oil, and water. Eventually, some people like to use pizza dough because they can buy a roll and don't need to make a dough from scratch that way.

While this is always an option, I suggest you try to make your own plain Flammkuchen dough. A Flammekuchen with pizza dough is just not the same; it tastes yeasty, which is not right. You can also use this no yeast pizza dough to make Flammkuchen!

Use a kitchen machine if you want to simplify the dough-making for you. That way it's as if you bought a ready-made dough. Once you have prepared the dough, you can move on to rolling it out and the topping and baking it.

That's it!

Serving

You can serve your Flammkuchen with a simple green salad topped with vinaigrette. I like my salad mixed with common green and red salad lettuce and romaine lettuce or iceberg salad.

You can also enjoy a plain clear soup as a starter before serving up the Flammkuchen.

I love a slice of my tarte flambée with a glass of white wine, such as a Pinot Blanc or a Riesling, in a Riedel wine glass.

The Alsace region is known for its white wine but also for the beer they prepare, so you can also serve your flammkuchen with a wheat beer.

FAQs