Name: Flammkuchen
Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients: 4 cups (500 g) bread flour; 2½ oz. (75 ml) vegetable oil; 1¼ cups (300 ml) water; 1 tsp. salt; Crème fraîche or sour cream, as needed; Salt, as needed; Ground nutmeg, as needed; Black pepper, ground, as needed; Red onions, thinly sliced, as needed; Lardons (cooked bacon cubes), as needed

Photo by Maja Smend

For some time during my years at university, I played music with a teacher from the Ortenau area, near Offenburg and Strasburg. She often organized courses, and for one of those music courses we all went to a country pub. I learned that flammkuchen was in season. In the area, flammkuchen used to be only served through the time of the wine harvest. The pubs were booked weeks in advance. And once you arrived at the pub, you ordered by the square meter!

The crisp base, in combination with the simple toppings, is an incredibly sensuous match, and it is no wonder that flammkuchen (also known as tarte flambée) is now almost universally available. There are lots of recipes out there using pizza dough and different bread doughs. Other recipes that claim to be original Alsatian version use unleavened dough, and this fact makes flammkuchen incredibly quick to make.

This recipe was excerpted from 'The German Baking Book' by Jurgen Krauss. Buy the full book on Amazon.