With Havarti cheese, ekmek is a delicate and slightly tangy flatbread that is delicious. The beginning for this Turkish bread recipe ferments for four days. I advise baking the loaves on a pizza stone. In the absence of a pizza stone, cookie sheets will also work. The recipe appears difficult, but it’s more simpler than it seems.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 4 days 2 hrs |
| Total Time: | 4 days 3 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 2 loaves |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups bread flour, divided
- ¾ cup water, divided
- 5 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- 6 cups bread flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
Instructions
- To make the starter: Place 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water in a bowl with a lid; stir well. Cover and let sit at room temperature overnight. The next day, add 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water to the bowl. Cover and let sit at room temperature overnight. On the third day, add 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water to the bowl. Cover and let sit at room temperature overnight.
- To make the dough: In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
- Break the starter into small pieces and add it to the yeast mixture. Stir in 4 cups of flour and salt. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and cover it with a dry cloth. Let it rise until doubled in size.
- Put the dough back onto a lightly floured work surface and punch out the air. Divide the dough in half and knead each piece for 2 to 3 minutes. Shape each piece into a tight oval loaf. Sprinkle two sheet pans with corn meal. Roll and stretch the two loaves until they are 15×12-inch ovals. Dust the tops of the loaves with flour. Cover with a dry cloth and let them rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Mist with water 3 times in the first 15 minutes. Loaves are done when their bottoms sound hollow when tapped. Let cool on wire racks before serving.
Reviews
Really nice flavor! Here’s what I did: I made the starter on Friday night. Saturday morning, I fed it again. Saturday night, I gave it the final feeding, so Sunday I could mix the dough. I used regular cool tap water in the bowl of a stand mixer, added the starter, and mixed it with a spoon to loosen it a bit. I added the flour, salt, and instant yeast (only about 11 g, or .35 ounces) and mixed with the dough hook for about 10 minutes. It’s a wet, sticky dough, but had lovely long developed gluten strands. I transferred the dough to an oiled bowl for the first proof. By the time it had doubled and I dumped it onto a floured board, the dough was firm and bouncy and a delight to work with. I sprinkled sesame seeds on the top of one loaf and baked them on a baking stone. Oh, and I preheated the oven and stone to 475, then reduced the oven temp to 425 once the loaves were in. I wish I’d had the sense to get ingredients to make döner kebaps; this bread would’ve been perfect!
I made this recipe a few years ago, the same recipe was published on turkish site Binnur turkish cookbook that I visit often. Now I am glad to see this recipe here. The taste was very good, but I think actually there is not a big difference in taste between this bread and a traditional bread without starter. So, I used this recipe only one time because I make bread three times a week and it is complicated for me to wait four days.
I’ve made this a couple times now, and have made it into 1 large loaf, and baked it in a cast iron covered pot that I preheated in the oven first, 1/2 hr covered and 15 min uncovered. Chewy crust and mild sourdough flavour – yum!
Great bread, but it’s kind of like an italian white bread. There is nothing flat about it! My starter was also soupy like another reviewer mentioned (both times I’ve made it) but that didn’t seem to be a problem. However, I had to add quite a bit of flour while kneading because the dough stayed pretty sticky. But the texture is great and my family loved it. This time I’m trying it with half whole wheat flour and a little flax oil…I’ll update on how it goes! (On the second rise now, all appears to be going well)
I had my first Ekmek while stationed in Turkey in the Army many years ago. This recipe is excellent but the wood fired ovens the Turks use give a different character that is impossible to match. Enterprising young men in Turkey buy baskets of fresh loaves and sell it on extablished delivery routes. Tenants in upper story apartments have baskets on cords or ropes that they lower from their balconies with the money and the vendor will take the money and put the loaves in for the customer to haul back up.
Very disappointed with the recipe. The taste and texture are nothing close to any Turkish breads I have ever eaten. And after living in Turkey for years and being married to a Turkish woman for even longer, she even questioned the Turkish in the title. One additional note, Ekmek is the name for all breads in Turkey, it would be nice to know what kind of bread this really is…
Let me start off by saying that I am by No Means an experienced breadmaker-the extent of my knowledge comes from attempting to make a loaf of french bread about four years ago (unsuccessfully) So this recipe was a little bit of a gamble for me! and guess what? it is the most wonderful bread!!! my loaves came out of the oven about 20 minutes ago and I was in shock, my result was a wonderfully textured bread with a nice chewy, crispy crust and a wonderful fluffy center =) a few sidenotes, I substituted an unbleached all purpose flour in place of the bread flour and the result seems just fine, also the part of the recipe that says ‘break starter into small pieces and drop into yeast mixture’ definitely worried me because my starter wasn’t breakable…it was more like flour and water soup, but the end result was still wonderful! I’m currently enjoying it with a little butter and honey on top and I don’t think I’ll be able to make myself pay $5 for a loaf of gourmet bread at the store ever again after knowing I can make something better by myself at home! THANK YOU SO MUCH for this recipe!
The bread is delicious. My husband loved it….just a shame one has to wait 4 days to enjoy it but it’s worth the wait. It is not complicated at all; just have to remember to do each step each day and be able to plan ahead if you want this for a special dinner.
This is a very good recipe! We served it with Pepper Havarti cheese and it was wonderful. We make it once a month.
This was a nice bread to serve with soup.I served it with Harira(also very good)and it went well.Good crispy crust and soft inside.I only cooked it for a little over 20 min. and it was pretty well done.
When a Lebanese friend suggested Middle Eastern food for our New Year’s Eve party, I decided to try this bread. It is was very good, and not hard. Impressed everyone though when I mentioned how long I had been working on it! Definitely worth keeping.
It really wasn’t all that hard to make. It tastes good, chewy with a hard crust. I would make it again.