German flammkuchen

Flammkuchen is a thin crispy pizza with crème fraîche, onion, and bacon. It’s the German answer to pizza. We made it even better with cream cheese and honey.

We also made the dough a bit lighter. The classic flammkuchen is wafer-thin. We like it when the bottom is a bit airier.

Making the dough for the bottom is not very difficult. All you have to keep an eye on is that you make the dough 2 hours in advance to still rise slightly. In the meantime, you can prepare the rest.

We happened to have smoked bacon ourselves last week, so we cut thick slices of it. You’re not supposed to cook the bacon completely crispy. You can stop when the slices are golden brown. Then you cut the slices into strips. In the fat of the bacon, fry the onion rings briefly until they are soft.

We bake pizza very often on the Kamado Joe, so we used the same setup for the flammkuchen. The Joe comes with an accessory rack. On that cross, you put the halve platesetters against each other. Above that comes the pizza stone. We want some space between the platesetters and the pizza stone. We use stainless steel corner parts, but that may also be a couple of thick bolts, for example.

Because the plate setter is now placed high in the inner kettle, the heat can easily go around and enter the kettle. This way, the flammkuchen is heated by the radiant heat from the lid.

Because the pizza stone is not directly heated, it cannot become too hot. That is actually the main plus of this setup. It is more important that the heat from above, which heats the moist toppings, is higher than the heat from below, which is supposed to bake the drier bottom.

If we open the vents at the top and bottom completely, you can heat the Joe up nicely and reach 350°C (650F) with ease. Those are the temperatures you need to bake pizza and this flammkuchen. Through the top vent’s hole, you can keep an eye on the flammkuchen without having to open the lid.

We roll out the dough with a rolling pin. This is the big difference with a pizza base that you shape by hand. The thinner you roll the bottom, the crunchier the bottom will be. Make sure you don’t make the bottom larger than your pizza stone. Then you’ve got to use a little less dough.

Spread the bottom with the crème fraîche/cream cheese and the rest, and then everything goes onto the pizza shovel. We do not use extra flour under the dough. We just wait until the stone is hot enough, and then we slide the flammkuchen on it.

The only flour under the dough came from the work surface, where we rolled out the bottom. Of course, the dough will immediately stick to the hot stone. But when the bottom is cooked, it will come loose by itself. No panic.

When the flammkuchen is still warm, we pour a little honey over it. That tastes great with the onion. Of course, you can also use other toppings such as small tomatoes or different types of cheese or mushrooms. Then it is no longer traditional flammkuchen, but who cares.