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.

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.

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.

It really wasn't all that hard to make. It tastes good, chewy with a hard crust. I would make it again.