Tarte Flambée or Flammekueche is a very tasty pizza-like flatbread topped with a mixture of fromage blanc (similar to yogurt or cottage cheese) and crème fraiche, sautéed onion and bacon. It is a very popular specialty of Alsace, a region that borders France and Germany. It’s a perfect appetizer for a dry, light white wine such as Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris or Riesling in spring, summer or almost any time of the year. Of course it’s great for lunch, served with a garden salad.
According to Tarte Flambée – Wikipedia, Tarte Flambée means “pie baked in the flames” in French, and Flammekueche is “flame cake” in German. Translation notwithstanding, tarte flambée often is cooked in a wood-fired oven, rather than flambéed. Legend has it that it was originally created to check for the perfect oven temperature when baking traditional bread. When it was hot enough to cook the thin-crust pizza in just a couple of minutes, the oven was ready.
The many variations of the original recipe differ mainly in the toppings: with added shredded gruyère cheese, Munster cheese, sliced mushrooms, ham (instead of bacon), etc. I often make it with crème fraiche, cheese and some greens on top, such as arugula, plus a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. (Trader Joe’s sells a similar tart {frozen}, a ham and gruyère version called “Tarte D’Alsace”. It’s pretty good.)
Dessert/sweet versions often feature apples and cinnamon, or blueberries, flambéed with Calvados (apple brandy), Kirsch (cherry brandy) or another fruit liqueur before placing the fruit on top of the tarte.
Pizza dough is widely available in supermarkets today, so you don’t have to make the dough if you lack the time or inclination, but I suggest you mix/knead 1 or 2 tablespoons of good olive oil and perhaps 1 tablespoon of honey into a store-bought dough for a more flavorful crust. Whatever you do, it will be a hit!
- ¾ cup lukewarm water, about 95°F, if your room temperature is about 70°F (21°C)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 sachet (7g) active dry yeast or ½ ounce (15g) fresh yeast
- 1¼ tablespoons olive oil or rendered bacon fat
- 1½ cup (210g) all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup (100g) bread flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 ounces (200g) smoked bacon, sliced into about ¼-inch wide strips (or 5-6 ounces ham, in small, thin slices)
- 1 ea. (250g) medium size onion, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon butter
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- ⅓ cup (70g) cream cheese or farmers’ cheese (fromage blanc), cottage cheese
- ⅓ cup (70g) crème fraiche
- ⅓ cup (70g) fresh ricotta cheese
- A bit of freshly grated nutmeg
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
- In a small bowl, mix all ingredients together and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the water and honey, and sprinkle the yeast. Let stand about 5 minutes, until foamy.
- In a large bowl, combine the flours, salt and fresh yeast if using. Add liquid into dry ingredients and mix to combine. Transfer dough to work surface and knead until smooth for about 8 minutes. (You can do all this with a stand mixer or food processor.)
- Form a tight ball and place in an oil-coated bowl. Oil the whole surface of the dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place (about 75-85°F) about 90 minutes or until it has tripled in size; or refrigerate overnight.
- Flip dough onto a floured work surface and divide into 2 equal portions, then shape into balls (unless making one large rectangle). Cover and let rest 20 minutes. Deflate and begin to flatten, rotating the dough using finger tips. (At that point the dough can be sealed in a bag and placed in the freezer for up to 3 weeks).
- Roll out into a large, thin rectangle or 2 disks, dusting with flour as you go. Transfer the dough onto a pizza peel or an upside-down baking tray lined with parchment paper or silicone mat.
- In a hot frying pan, sauté the bacon until slightly crispy and drain. Save bacon fat for later use. In the same frying pan (leave some of the bacon fat) melt in butter and sauté onions on medium high heat for 2 minutes, then reduce to low and continue cooking for 5-6 minutes or until tender. Season onion with salt and pepper and set aside.
- Spread the creamy filling evenly on the dough sheet or disks and spread out onions and bacon (or ham). At that point, tarte flambée can be frozen for up to a month.
- Preheat oven to very hot, 550ºF (290ºC) if you can, with a pizza stone if you have one. Hold parchment paper (or pizza peel) and carefully slide tarte flambée(s) onto the hot pizza stone. Bake for about 7 minutes. If the dough was frozen, bake for 2 minutes more. Slide flammekueche back onto the upside-down baking tray and transfer onto a cooling rack for a few minutes before cutting. If using a wood-fired oven, it should take only 3 min to bake. Season with ground black pepper, cut into desired portions and serve warm.
- Using crème fraiche is the most authentic, and definitely recommended. If you use only one kind of cheese for a topping, increase to ½ cup each the crème fraiche and cream/farmers/cottage cheese mixture in the filling... more or less, according to preference. No need to precook the ham if using instead of bacon.
