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

Herb-and-Salt Sourdough Focaccia

On January 18, 2024January 25, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdoughLeave a comment

Since I started baking with sourdough starter and developing my own recipes, my go-to loaf has been Sourdough Cabin Bread: freeform, crusty, and the right shape and texture for everything from a sandwich or French toast to chunks for dipping in soup and cubes for turning into Panzanella. If this bread has a fault, it’s that it keeps cooking through to the center after you pull it from the oven, which means it really should cool completely before you slice it.

A desire for hot-from-the-oven bread tops my reasons for making the sourdough focaccia recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. Not only can it be eaten hot, but it prefers to be eaten as fresh as possible. Focaccia becomes stale quickly, so I intentionally scaled the recipe to a small pan.
Learn to make Herb-and-Salt Sourdough Focaccia

Sourdough Empanadas

On January 11, 2024January 25, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdough1 Comment

When I first started baking with a sourdough starter, I was eager to bake loaves of tangy fermented bread with a cracking crust and tender crumb. Since then, baking bread has become a habit that ensures I always have a fresh homemade loaf ready to slice. Yet I probably make Sourdough Pizza Dough even more frequently because it can be transformed in so many ways. As I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, mastering this recipe opens opportunities to make everything from baked and grilled pizza to stuffed pastries like empanadas.

I teach people how to make homemade sourdough pizzas in one of my most popular workshops, because learning to make this dough is such an easy way to become comfortable baking with wild yeast. I also recommend it for new bakers who are just learning on their own to care for and use a sourdough starter.
Learn to make Sourdough Empanadas

7th Annual Sourdough Month and Sharing Starters

On January 4, 2024December 31, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdoughLeave a comment

Since 2017, I have declared each January to be Sourdough Month here at Twice as Tasty. What began as encouragement to fill chilly winter kitchens with the aroma and warmth of baking fermented bread—by sharing recipes and giving away the sourdough starter needed to follow them—has grown into a record-breaking annual giveaway. Hundreds of people in northwest Montana and around the world have had the opportunity to bake with my personal sourdough starter.

As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, the numbers show more than the giveaway’s success. If you need starter, there’s now a large group of people to tap into who have made their Twice as Tasty sourdough starter their own. If you’re among that group, you’re all set to share your love of sourdough—and your starter.

Making and Using Sourdough Starter

On November 7, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn sourdoughLeave a comment

I’ve been baking with my sourdough starter for more than 9 years and teaching others to do so for nearly as long, but there’s always so much more to learn. So I was excited for the opportunity to research, write, and now share a sourdough guide on The Old Farmer’s Almanac website based on historical sourdough recipes from their archive.

This guide includes instructions for making a sourdough starter from scratch, which was a new project for me. I was gifted my existing sourdough starter in May 2014, and I’ve been baking with it, and sharing it with hundreds of people, ever since. The Beginner Sourdough Starter in the guide, which I based on archival recipes, is also fed and maintained a little differently from how I manage my established starter, which may appeal to sourdough bakers who don’t want to buy a kitchen scale or weigh out ingredients in grams. The four recipes in the guide use this scratch-made sourdough starter in quick breads and even a crusty white loaf.
Learn more about making and using sourdough starter

How To Make Cheese, Step by Step

On April 25, 2023November 19, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cheese, FermentingLeave a comment

I’m excited to share my first pieces for The Old Farmer’s Almanac website—all about cheese! I created a basic cheese making guide to help beginners make their first cheese and experienced cheese makers learn some of the history and details about the process. It includes a recipe for a classic cheese from pioneer days: Farmer’s Cheese. You’ll also find that recipe in a separate post that includes step-by-step photos of the process.

I’m just as excited that by creating these pieces for Almanac.com, the editors have added more recipes to their website for making cheese and other dairy products. The website’s collection now includes recipes for homemade ricotta, yogurt, and butter. I have another piece in the works for their website, too.
Learn how to make cheese, step-by-step