Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

On December 11, 2025December 11, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

It’s hard to imagine celebrating the winter holidays without a little gingerbread in the mix. The combination of molasses, ginger, and other spices creates cookies and loaf cake that seem made for cozying up next to the woodstove and watching the snow come down.

The gingerbread cookie recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon is an old one that I’ve made bolder with extra spices. When I want an even stronger ginger flavor—any time of year—I make Triple Gingersnaps or Triple Ginger Cake. But expanding just the ground spices gives traditional cookies a little kick yet keeps them smooth and ideal for decorating.
Learn to make Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies

Smoky Oatmeal–Cranberry Cookies

On December 5, 2025December 5, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookies2 Comments

I usually make more sweet treats in November and December than I do all the rest of the year, mostly because I’m sharing them widely. Last month I was using homegrown fruit in Crumble-Top Deep-Dish Apple Pie and cherry pie. This month is all about cookies, as I share this week and next in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

These cookies will travel with me across three states when I visit family over Christmas. Some will find their way to gatherings and parties. Others will become my favorite chairlift snack in our just-opened local ski area. So the cookies I make each holiday season vary widely, from aged family favorites, to eye-catching sweets for party trays, to sturdy treats that tuck into a ski jacket pocket.
Learn to make Smoky Oatmeal–Cranberry Cookies

Double Apple Muffins

On October 16, 2025October 16, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, quick breadsLeave a comment

One of my favorite baked goods tricks is to replace some of the fat in the recipe with homemade applesauce. It works well with all sorts of muffins and quick breads, but it’s particularly delicious when you’re already featuring apples, like in the muffin recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

I make two types of applesauce: Frozen Chunky Applesauce and Canned Smooth-Style Applesauce. Both work as replacements for up to half of the oil, butter or other fat in many baked goods that get their rising power from baking soda or baking powder, especially when that fat is liquid rather than solid. Use canned smooth applesauce if you want the substitution to blend in seamlessly. Chunky applesauce does the job when you don’t mind bites of apple in the mix or when pureed before measuring to make it smooth.
Learn to make Double Apple Muffins

Fresh Pear, Goat Cheese, and Rosemary Galette

On October 11, 2025October 11, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn baked, ColumnLeave a comment

I’ve baked more galettes than usual in the last few months, and not because I harvested more fruit or went to more parties. What inspired me to create more of these freeform tarts was a new-to-me technique that kept their filling from becoming a runny mess that oozed out the sides of the folded pastry. It even improved the galette made with sturdy pears that I share this week my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

The technique is simple: sprinkle absorptive cornmeal or breadcrumbs over the pastry before you spread out the fruit. The result is marvelous. I first used a cornmeal layer in one of my juiciest galettes, filled with fresh tart cherries and raspberries. In the past, I would pull a pan holding a berry-heavy galette from the oven to find the pasty sitting soggily in a pool of juice, leaving a sunken filling—and quite the mess to clean up. This time, the pan and parchment it rested on were bone dry, and the tart looked beautiful.

Credit goes to Clair Saffitz for this fabulous technique, which I learned from her Plum Galette with Polenta and Pistachios recipe in her Dessert Person cookbook and saw put to good use in recipes for apple and for apricot and strawberry galettes in her latest book, What’s For Dessert. Even her simplest recipes have highly detailed instructions and loads of tricks to improve your dessert making.
Learn to make Fresh Pear, Goat Cheese, and Rosemary Galette

Strawberry Clafouti (Pudding Cake)

On June 19, 2025June 19, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cakes, ColumnLeave a comment

When the name of a recipe tempts you to try it, a delicious result feels like a bonus. That was the case for me and clafouti, as I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. The pudding cake, with its uneven edges and layer of fruit that it arranges itself naturally as it rises to the top, isn’t as fancy as ganache-glazed cakes, precisely arranged tarts and neatly rounded scoops of sorbet that you might make for a special occasion (like, say, Twice as Tasty’s 9th anniversary). But boy, does clafouti taste good.

Claflouti (pronounced “claw-foo-tee”) reminds me of other sweet treats that are fun to say. Snickerdoodles have been a favorite since childhood. I’ve written about several others for Taste of Home, including Melomakarona and Apple Pandowdy.
Learn to make Strawberry Clafouti

Tangy Rhubarb Muffins

On April 24, 2025April 24, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, quick breadsLeave a comment

When I want to bake muffins, I reach for whichever homemade dairy product happens to be in my fridge that day: cultured buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, each has a different texture and flavor but can be used interchangeably in many baked goods.

Cultured buttermilk tends to be just slightly thicker than heavy cream, and it adds flavor not just to sweet rhubarb muffins but also to savory Corn Kernel Muffins with Sage. My favorite substitute for it is the whey from Homemade Small-Batch Yogurt: Drain the yogurt through a fine-mesh strainer and capture the tangy liquid in a measuring cup. If the whey seems too thin, stir in a couple of tablespoons of the yogurt before using it in Berry Chocolate Muffins.
Learn to make Tangy Rhubarb Muffins

Loaf-Pan Lemon Cake

On March 13, 2025March 13, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cakes, ColumnLeave a comment

The recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column on the Flathead Beacon website was intended for another Beacon publication: the Flathead Valley Family magazine. The latest edition of the magazine—in all its printed-page, glossy glory—hit the valley’s streets about a week ago. It includes an article that I filled with kid-friendly recipes, with the help of some of my favorite kid chefs.

My “Cooking with Kids!” feature offers breakfast, dinner, pickle, and cookie recipes all easily made by kids (with adult help, depending on the head chef’s age and experience). Be sure to pick up a printed copy of Flathead Valley Family or, if you’re not local, check out the full article online.

The Russell, Steck, and Van Ness families had so many great ideas that I knew we wouldn’t fit all of the recipes in the printed space. I tested and perfected this lemon loaf cake recipe anyway, and the Beacon’s media director, Hunter D’Antuono, took mouth-watering pictures of it during our photo shoot. My niece, who was making cheese with me at the age of 4, is an experienced-enough baker in her middle school years to make this cake on her own.
Learn to make Loaf-Pan Lemon Cake

Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies with Ganache

On December 20, 2024December 20, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, cookiesLeave a comment

One of the beauties of ganache is that it can be a feature or an optional decorative touch for a dessert. When I shared my recipe for Ganache (Chocolate Glaze), I emphasized how it can be drizzled over everyday cookies and other desserts to make them seem a little fancier. The recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon makes the creamy chocolate integral to the cookie, using it as the filling for peanut butter thumbprints.

The cookies I use as the thumbprint base are simply Fresh Ground Peanut Butter Cookies. Once you’re comfortable making those, then the chocolate upgrade creates a stress-free holiday version. If you bake them as thumbprints but run out of time for decorative chocolate, spoon it into their centers or pop open jars of homemade jam for the filling. Run out of time after you mix the dough, and you can easily bake it off with the traditional cross-hatched look. The everyday cookies are so delicious on their own that they’d be welcome at any party.
Learn to make Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies with Ganache

Baked Rice Pudding

On November 15, 2024November 15, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn baked, ColumnLeave a comment

Rice pudding tops my list of easy desserts that can be made from kitchen staples and leftovers. I prefer the baked version that I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon over a stovetop pudding that more closely resembles a porridge in texture. Baking achieves the same creaminess but provides more structure in each bite. As a bonus, the dish prefers to be left untouched while in the oven, whereas you need to keep an eye on stovetop rice pudding and stir it occasionally to prevent it from burning.

The name is a bit of a misnomer, because this dessert has more of the features that define a custard than a pudding. The starchy rice does provide a little thickening power, but it’s really the eggs that make rice pudding set up properly. That’s partly why it puffs slightly in the oven and then deflates again as it cools. Rice pudding also has the firmer texture associated with custard, especially when it’s baked in the oven, rather than the softness of a pudding.
Learn to make Baked Rice Pudding

Corn Kernel Muffins with Sage

On September 26, 2024September 26, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, quick breadsLeave a comment

I snuck two recipes into this week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. The main corn muffin recipe has far more texture and flavor than a simple pan of cornbread. The secondary recipe is in the steps that prepare the fresh corn for the muffins: essentially, make creamed corn from scratch.

I like to double just the fresh corn and milk in the muffin recipe, bake it in two pans, and lightly season one pan. That hot creamed corn tastes delicious when served alongside, say, Panfish Piccata and a second vegetable like Bagna Cauda-Style Mashed Potatoes or Maple-Glazed Carrots.

After the second pan of baked, unseasoned kernels cools, I fold these into the corn muffin batter. A little sugar plays on the corn’s natural sweetness, but these muffins remain savory enough to serve with eggs at breakfast or as a cornbread replacement at dinner.
Learn to make Corn Kernel Muffins with Sage