Homemade Sour Cream

On April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cheese, ColumnLeave a comment

I rounded out a collection of homemade dairy products this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon with sour cream. I love the tangy richness of sour cream and spoon it over everything from nachos to baked potatoes to Sourdough Empanadas. It’s an essential flavor on and in Mushroom-Filled Blini and makes Onion Lover’s Dip irresistible.

I bake with sour cream as often as buttermilk, because it provides loft in recipes like Chocolate–Sour Cream Cookies and lightens scones, including Savory Herb and Sour Cream Scones. But homemade sour cream, cultured buttermilk, and fresh yogurt are just the starting point. Once you become comfortable with the techniques and ingredients for soft creations, your first homemade cheese is just a recipe away.
Learn to make Homemade Sour Cream

Cultured Buttermilk

On April 11, 2025April 11, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cheese, ColumnLeave a comment

There’s a distinct difference between the baking shortcut of using vinegar or lemon juice to sour milk and the creamy, tang taste of cultured buttermilk. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, the former has its uses. For example, in Loaf-Pan Lemon Cake, the double dose of lemon boosts the citrusy flavor. But in icings and salad dressings, and even baked goods and savory dishes, it’s worth splurging for cultured buttermilk—or making your own.

Homemade buttermilk takes less effort than homemade small-batch yogurt, but it does require a powdered starter culture. That shouldn’t be a deal breaker; buttermilk is an easy way to see just how powdered starters work. Once you try it, you’ll be far more comfortable making your first batch of Dry-Salted Feta or Homemade Fromage Blanc.
Learn to make Cultured Buttermilk

Homemade Small-Batch Yogurt

On April 4, 2025April 4, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cheese, ColumnLeave a comment

Dairy fermentation is a bit different from fermenting vegetables for pickles or sourdough for bread, but all of these techniques have a gateway recipe that opens a whole new food world. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, yogurt was my fermented dairy gateway. Once I realized how easy it is to turn milk into fresh yogurt at home, the idea of making cheese and other dairy products became far less daunting.

These days, about half of the fermented dairy products in my fridge are homemade. I make sour cream every time I reach the bottom of the jar and fresh yogurt nearly as often. Cheeses come and go as the whim hits me: sometimes I crave Dry-Salted Feta for shakshuka, and sometimes I’m pressing Homemade Farmer’s Cheese for Paneer Tikka Masala or cutting and salting squeaky cheese curds to serve over oven fries with Vegetarian Mushroom Gravy as poutine. I gained the confidence to make these and even pressed and aged cheeses after mastering homemade yogurt.
Learn to make Homemade Small-Batch Yogurt

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with Buttermilk Glaze

On January 31, 2025January 30, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdoughLeave a comment

As the 8th Annual Sourdough Month comes to a close, it seems appropriate to end on a sweet note. This week’s recipe is also the culmination of the mother doughs and recipes I’ve been sharing in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon all month. I’ve now shared multiple ways to shape and bake each mother dough: dinner rolls, buns, crescents, loaves, and now cinnamon rolls.

Each mother dough isn’t just adaptable on its own; they’re often interchangeable depending on whether you want a richer, buttery dough or a sweeter, softer one. To put it simply, you can make delicious cinnamon rolls with either Sourdough Brioche Dough or Sourdough Crescent Dough.

Learn to make Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with Buttermilk Glaze

Sourdough Crescent Dough and Rolls

On January 23, 2025January 23, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdoughLeave a comment

I originally hadn’t intended to share more than one mother dough during the 8th Annual Sourdough Month in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. But I’ve been playing with a second dough recipe this year that received such accolades when I shared it with friends and family that I couldn’t sit on it until next January. What started as a homemade yeast dough recipe that I then converted for sourdough was popular not just with sourdough lovers but also with those who grew up eating pop-can dough baked into crescent rolls.

I wasn’t one of those kids. When I was young, the only time we twisted open a can of poppin’ fresh dough was around a campfire, where it was a special treat to wrap it around a thick stick, hold it over the open flame until it baked and browned on the outside, and then slide it off and fill the finger-size gap left in its center with jam or cheese. So my memories of the flavor of store-bought crescent roll dough are overpowered by the smell of woodsmoke and a taste closer to wood-fired pizza. I was quite prepared to shape my Sourdough Brioche Dough into crescents and leave it at that.

Learn to make Sourdough Crescent Dough and Rolls

Sourdough Brioche Loaves

On January 16, 2025January 16, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdoughLeave a comment

With this week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, you now have several ways to shape the brioche mother dough I’ve been focused on so far this month. The first technique shapes the dough into round rolls or slightly flatter buns, which bake freeform on a flat pan. You could turn the dough into larger freeform loaves and bake it the way you would Sourdough Cabin Bread, but such a buttery dough can make a melted mess of a baking stone. So the recipe I share this week bakes the dough in loaf pans—and it works particularly well in a covered Pullman pan.

I own two 1.5-pound Pullman pans from different companies. Both have a corrugated bottom and sides to help improve airflow and reduce condensation, but one also has a perforated bottom. When baking sourdough brioche bread and other buttery recipes in the perforated pan, I line it with parchment paper to keep butter from dripping through onto the floor of the oven.

Learn to make Sourdough Brioche Loaves

Sourdough Brioche Dough and Rolls

On January 10, 2025January 10, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdoughLeave a comment

To kick off this month’s sourdough recipes, I share my brioche mother dough and explain how to turn it into rolls, either rounded for the dinner table or as slightly flattened buns to split for burgers. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, this brioche dough has many uses. Once the dough ball is fully formed, you can bake it into all sorts of shapes. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite uses for this dough all month.

Brioche dough has a rich, buttery flavor and somewhat flaky texture that I feel is beautifully enhanced by the complex taste created by wild yeast. Brioche has less butter than croissants, but recipes vary widely in their butter-to-flour ratio. My version lands in the middle of many of the recipes I’ve tried. Brioche has plenty of eggs to make it denser than croissants and a little sugar—both granulated and milk’s natural sugars—to offset the tanginess of the sourdough. It’s also easier to make, with the soften butter pressed in at the start, long fermentation times, and minimal kneading.

Learn to make Sourdough Brioche Dough and Rolls

8th Annual Sourdough Month

On January 3, 2025January 3, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdoughLeave a comment

It’s January, which means Sourdough Month here at Twice as Tasty. Since 2017, I’ve dedicated this month to encouraging you to keep a sourdough starter in your kitchen and use it to bake all sorts of tasty doughs. This year, my recipes in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon will focus on a couple of sweet mother doughs that can be used in countless ways. I’ll share some of my favorite loaf and roll shapes to get you excited about using sourdough starter when you bake brioche-style doughs.

I’ve been maintaining my sourdough starter since 2014, through weeks of constant feeding as I built it up to share with hundreds of new bakers—and months of neglect as I traveled. If life got in the way of your sourdough habit, you might not have had the same faith in your unused jar of starter. But as I explain in this week’s column, wild yeast is unbelievably resilient, and an ugly starter lurking at the back of your fridge might still be full of life. If you’re still skeptical after reading this week’s column, just check out this post and photos of a sourdough starter I woke up after 2 years of dormancy.

Cheese-Stuffed Grilled Sourdough Breadsticks

On August 30, 2024August 29, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdoughLeave a comment

From the first year of the Twice as Tasty blog, I set aside January as Sourdough Month. The cold winter window after the holidays and before the first seed packets arrived seems ideal for sharing starter and recipes that bake sourdough in the oven. But when the temperatures hit the other extreme, I do a lot of my sourdough baking on the grill. So I decided to share a sourdough recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

This grilled breadstick recipe comes on the heels of Grilled Tomato Pizza Sauce, my favorite dipping sauce for these breadsticks—although if you’re a fan of roasted sweet peppers, they’re delicious dipped into Grilled Sweet Pepper Sauce too. The grilled breadsticks start with a ball of pizza dough; you can find my sourdough recipe here if you’re just getting started on your sourdough adventures, or you can swap in your favorite yeast-based pizza dough recipe. For a full mozzarella upgrade, use Cold-Smoked Cheese.
Learn to make Cheese-Stuffed Grilled Sourdough Breadsticks

Twice-Baked Sourdough Pita Chips

On January 25, 2024February 22, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdough2 Comments

We’re winding down this year’s Sourdough Month here at Twice as Tasty. I’ve been sending out far fewer packets than in the last couple of years, but it’s been exciting to see others sharing and receiving sourdough starter locally and through the Sharing fermented starters Facebook group. One of the things I love about this online group is that people are sharing so many ferments, with kefir grains some of the more popular at the moment. The other thing to love is that this group is active all year, around the world. So if January wasn’t your sourdough month, you can request starter within the group whenever you’re ready to join in the fermentation fun.

I put a different spin on that fun this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. It pushes beyond soft, chewy loaves like Herb-and-Salt Sourdough Focaccia to a bake that satisfies the craving for something crispy and crunchy.
Learn to make Twice-Baked Sourdough Pita Chips