Apple Chevre Flatbread

This apple chevre flatbread is the epitome of the kind of food I love to eat. For me, a perfect meal is satiating, but light. It looks a bit fancy, but never at the expense of great taste.

Apple Chevre Flatbread

It seems that a lot of the more modern restaurants these days tend to sacrifice taste for presentation. I recently went to a well-known restaurant near my home, trying to give their lunch menu another try.

This restaurant specializes in the kind of plates that are meant to be shared (tapas, if you will) and are made with simple, quality ingredients. In theory, their menu is everything I idealize and try to emulate in my own kitchen. But in reality, the only items I actually enjoy on their menu are their bakery items.

When it comes to their savory dishes, the taste is just completely off. For example, you’ll see a dish with ham, gruyere, and leeks, and think, why, yes, this is a French combination that tastes fabulous! But when you actually taste it, there’s some odd spread they’ve put on top of the ham, or the leeks have a citrus-y quality that just doesn’t tie in well with the rest of the dish.

Simply put, the dishes always taste off. It’s a shame because the restaurant’s baked goods are fantastic, so now I’m limited to just going there for a morning croissant or scone.

But that’s why it’s so fun to be able to cook and bake in our own kitchens; we’re able to create the meals that we crave, and ensure that they taste as good as we fantasize them to be.

This apple chevre flatbread is so good, it goes beyond what I ever dreamt it could be. It looks pretty, but it’s truly uncomplicated. Instead, this flatbread relies on quality, seasonal ingredients that not only seem like they’ll taste good together, but honestly, really do taste good together.

Apples this time of the year are conventionally thrown into desserts like apple spice cake or apple pie, but as some of my talented blogging friends like Cheyanne, from No Spoon Necessary, have beautifully proven, apples can be a wonderful component in a savory dish. Just as sweet and salty is America’s favorite dessert combination, the same can be true in savory dishes.

The apples pair wonderfully with the caramelized onions, since the onions have just that slightest bit of sweetness to them. The chevre, or goat cheese, does a wonderful job of maintaining its creaminess as it bakes, rather than melting and losing its composition.

More importantly, chevre tends to be robust in flavor, bold enough to be noticed on the palate, but not so bold as to only appeal to a limited number of palates like, say, blue cheese. Chevre tends to have a slightly earthy taste which is only amplified in this meal with the addition of thyme leaves.

I bake the entire flatbread on a pizza stone, which gives the bread that extra bit of crispiness and crunch. I also toss spiced pumpkin seeds (pepitas) onto the apple chevre flatbread once it’s done baking to provide another layer of crunch. When you taste that crisp texture in your mouth from the bread and pumpkins seeds, and then immediately feel the accompanying creamy chevre melting on your tongue, it’s absolute magic.

I don’t need any fancy pants restaurant fulfilling my culinary dreams; this apple chevre flatbread does that and so much more.

Apple Chevre Flatbread

Yield: 1

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

A delicious fall flatbread made with apples, goat cheese, caramelized onions and pumpkin seeds. 

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Ingredients

for the dough

• 2/3 c of all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting hands and work surface
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tbsp olive oil, plus more to grease bowl with
• 1/4 tbsp honey
• 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/3 c warm water 105°F to 110°F

for the toppings

• 1/2 an onion, sliced thinly
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• pinch of sugar
• 2 oz goat cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 a medium to large apple, thinly sliced
• 2 sprigs of thyme leaves
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp pepitas, pumpkin seeds

Instructions

1. Start off by creating your dough. In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the honey in the warm water and stir to dissolve. Add the honey water to your flour mixture, following with the olive oil. Stir together until you create a smooth, sticky dough.
2. Grease a medium bowl with a little bit of olive oil before transferring the dough into this bowl. Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise in a warm, draft-free place (like a turned off oven) for 1 hour.
3. Meanwhile, create your caramelized onions. Sauté the sliced onions in the vegetable oil over medium-low heat. Once translucent, add the pinch of sugar and stir to combine. Continue cooking the onions until they’ve obtained a golden color. Turn off the heat and set aside.
4. Once your dough has risen, preheat the oven to 425°F.
5. Lightly flour your hands and lift the dough out of the bowl and onto a large sheet of parchment paper. Use your hands to spread the dough out into a rectangular shape, dusting your hands with flour as needed; the dough will be sticky, this is OK.
6. Top the dough with the crumbled goat cheese, caramelized onions, and apple slices. Gently lift the parchment paper with the dough and transfer to a baking sheet.
7. Bake the flatbread for approximately 20 minutes, or until the edges of the bread are slightly golden. Once your flatbread has finished baking, top with the thyme leaves and pepitas.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 1 Serving Size: 1 Servings
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 791