Category: Fermenting

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Ingredient4 Comments

I love letting dough rise overnight to bake off for sweet breakfast buns. My creations haven’t always been successful—but this one is. Learn to make Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with Buttermilk Glaze.Last week’s Sourdough Brioche post evolved out of a desire to make this week’s recipe: Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls. I’ve long loved letting dough rise overnight to bake off for sweet breakfast buns. But I’ve had some failures. I once overloaded a bundt pan with balls of frozen bread dough to make my mom’s favorite buttterscotch roll recipe—only to wake up and find the dough balls dangling rather obscenely outside the pan.

Initially, my cinnamon roll recipe was also unappealing—but for its flavor, not its looks. The plan was to use pizza dough. I’d read about such conversions on various blogs and websites, with titles like Easiest Cinnamon Rolls Ever and Shortcut Cinnamon Rolls. My attempt resulted in spiral-wound, cinnamon-tinged… pizza crust.

So although a handy ball of pizza dough seems like an easy shortcut, you’re better off learning to make last week’s delicious Sourdough Brioche Dough. It won’t just turn into the best hamburger buns you’ve ever tasted; it will turn into breakfast buns that taste and feel like cinnamon rolls.
Learn to make Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with Buttermilk Glaze

Sourdough Brioche

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Ingredient5 Comments

Buttery, rich, and sourdough? It may not be traditional, but brioche doesn’t get much better than this. Learn to make Sourdough Brioche Dough and Sourdough Buns.One of the beauties of making your own bread is that once you’ve mastered a dough recipe, you can often use it in many ways. As you saw last week, a ball of Sourdough Pizza Dough can take many shapes: pizza pies, calzones, empanadas, and even breadsticks. Brioche is just as versatile and delicious.

Sourdough brioche may seem as much of an oxymoron as bread master Peter Reinhart’s whole-wheat brioche. But I see it as adding just another layer of flavor to an egg- and butter-rich dough. Once you’ve learned the basic recipe, you can use it to make any number of breads with various flours, sweetness levels, and shapes. I’ve just begun my brioche dough adventure, working it into buns and sweet rolls, but Reinhart recommends using it in everything from bread pudding to toast points to savory tarts. I see more Twice as Tasty brioche-style recipes on the horizon—starting with Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls next week.
Learn to make Sourdough Brioche Dough and Sourdough Buns

Beyond Pizza

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Topic, Using9 Comments

I learned to appreciate calzones and empanadas by baking pizzas at home. If you love deep toppings and excessive cheese, you’ll want these recipes. Learn to make Sourdough Calzones and Empanadas.I didn’t appreciate calzones until I started baking beautiful pizzas at home. Before my homemade pizzas achieved elegance, they tended toward soggy masses on soft, undercooked dough or slightly burned toppings over a cracker-crisp crust. Both variations resulted from the same problem: too many toppings at too low of a temperature.

I’ve learned not to compare pizzas baked in a home oven with fully loaded, wood-fire pizzas—and especially with those I ate in Naples. Kenji, lord of Serious Eats, puts it bluntly: “You’re never going to be able to produce a perfect Neapolitan-style pie in a home oven.” The crew at Bon Appétit is a bit less forceful yet just as adamant: “For those hefty pies to work, they need an ultra-sturdy crust and a really, really, really, really hot oven. Leave it to the pros and go simple.”

So as I teach all my workshop participants, whether grilling or baking your pizza, keep your temperature high and your toppings light. But if you’re a fan of deep toppings and excessive cheese, turn your pizza dough into calzones or empanadas.
Learn to make Sourdough Calzones and Sourdough Empanadas

Sourdough Excuses

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Giveaway4 Comments

Whatever your excuse for not baking with sourdough, it likely doesn’t apply to the way I care for and use sourdough starter. Read more about why you can—and should—bake with sourdough.
After I started blogging about sourdough, people began telling me how they’ve always wanted to bake sourdough goodies—and why they can’t. The excuses started piling up in earnest when I launched the Sourdough Giveaway Experiment last month. Although I’ve been busy sharing my own starter for free, far more people have told me they won’t be joining the party.

Many excuses seem valid, but they don’t apply to the way I advocate caring for and using sourdough starter. So I’m kicking off this year’s Sourdough Month at Twice as Tasty by debunking a few of the most common myths about baking with sourdough. I’m also extending the offer of free sourdough starter through January. I’ll be sharing new sourdough recipes all month, so check out the current collection of sourdough recipes, drool over the latest treats, and get your free starter.
Read more about why you can—and should—bake with sourdough

The Sourdough Giveaway Experiment

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Giveaway6 Comments

A sourdough starter wants to be loved—and has plenty of love to go around. That’s why I’m giving away sourdough starter this month. Read more about the Sourdough Giveaway Experiment.
Of all the topics on Twice as Tasty, it seems that people are most curious about sourdough. It was the focus of my first public workshop and will be the focus of blog posts every January and workshops every spring. It often comes up when I serve food at events locally, and it seems to be increasingly popular nationally.

All with good reason: A sourdough starter is an incredible creation. There are lots of reasons to love it, from health benefits to flavor. To me, one of the greatest things about a sourdough starter is that it wants to be loved—and has plenty of love to go around. That’s why I’m giving away sourdough starter this month and hope you’ll join me in this sourdough experiment.
Read more about the Sourdough Giveaway Experiment

Season Wrap-up

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dry storage, Fermenting, Freezing, Grilling, Refrigerating, Topic, Using1 Comment

After a scorching-hot summer in Montana—literally, with more than 1 million acres burned—fall has come on fast and furious, with a chance of snow at my house this morning. The quick downshift from summer to practically winter instantly affected the garden. Overnight, cucumbers and snap beans stopped growing, apples began falling, and large leaves of self-seeded spinach reappeared in my overgrown and ignored spring cold frame.

Within the hoop house, plants are weathering the weather better, but it won’t be long before I’m forced to admit the final round of peppers and tomatillos won’t grow larger and the remaining tomatoes won’t turn red on the vine. Fortunately, unripened produce can still land in the kitchen instead of the compost. With the right timing, you can enjoy every last late-season vegetable.
Read more about wrapping up the garden

Wild Berries

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Ingredient, Using2 Comments

We interrupt the regularly scheduled post to bring you…huckleberries! Regardless of where you live, some foraged fruit or vegetable likely draws people out of their gardens and into the wild. But if you live in the high country, you know that regularly scheduled activities get shunted aside when hucks ripen on mountain slopes. As the season progresses, the most accessible berries are snatched up by other omnivores—human and bear—so pickers must go farther and higher to find these treasures. In my case, a 3-mile roundtrip hike and 3-hour picking session yielded about half a gallon of tiny purple gems.

With that much effort and time involved, I tend to hoard my huckleberries and dole them out in small doses—no small feat when I will happily eat a cup of fruit on one bowl of granola and yogurt. So you won’t find me rolling the results of a day of foraging into a pie or jars of jam. Instead, I prefer recipes that highlight smaller amounts of fruit, whether for breakfast or for dessert.
Learn to make Crepes with Wild Berries and Lemon Cheese and Rhubarb–Huckleberry Galette

Pick a Pickle

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Fermenting, Refrigerating, Topic, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Almost every vegetable garden explodes in July. My first July harvest included the last of the spring greens and asparagus, midcycle broccoli and garlic scapes, and the first snap peas, carrots, beets, and bulb onions. The harvest will go straight into our mouths, but as the yields grow jugs of vinegar and a box of salt will be front and center, ready for pickling.

All of my recently harvested vegetables can be pickled, along with snap beans, summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, garlic, cabbage, and even fruit. That’s the beauty of pickling: it lets you preserve any low-acid vegetable safely. And like many of my favorite processing techniques, it’s endlessly variable. Various pickling techniques let you preserve everything from a single cucumber to a box of cukes. You can flavor them to fit any meal: American dills or bread-and-butters with burgers, Japanese kyuri asazuke with sushi, Indian kheer uragai with curry—and that’s just a few variations on cucumber pickles.
Read more about quick and easy pickling

Yogurt Dips

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, Ingredient, Using5 Comments

Homemade cheese and yogurt are delicious not just on their own but also when featured or even a footnote in other recipes. Bring a tray of homemade dips, cheese, and sourdough bread to a potluck or party (or house concert), and guests immediately compliment your tasty contribution. Then when someone asks what’s in the dip, say, “homemade yogurt”; eyes brighten, jaws drop, and people dig back into the bowl. At least, that’s my experience.

I’ve long been a fan of tzatziki, and it’s among my favorite ways to showcase homemade yogurt. A tangy fresh batch makes the dip pop—so much so that I cut back on the lemon juice. Although traditionally made with sheep’s or goat’s milk, draining a cow’s milk yogurt until it’s thick works beautifully. Just a tablespoon or two of the same thickened yogurt gives a surprising creaminess to other dips, especially ones featuring beans.
Learn to make Tzatziki and Asian White Bean Dip

Curds and Whey

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, Topic, Using5 Comments

Once you start making cheese, you’ll quickly realize you’re left with a large quantity of whey—so much you’ll be loath to just pour the yellowish liquid down the drain. Fortunately, whey has many uses. You probably already consume more whey than you realize: it’s popular in protein powders, weight-loss beverages, and even infant formula. Cheese makers have long known the value of this by-product and use it to make more cheese, like ricotta and my favorite gjetost.

Whey is considered sweet or acidic. Hard cheese and Fresh Yogurt give you sweet whey; Lemon Cheese gives you acid whey. Some sources prefer sweet whey for baking, but I love tangy flavors. I use the whey from Lemon Cheese in baked goods, as a cooking liquid for rice, a stock substitute in soups, and a cheese sauce replacement for soups and pasta.
Learn to make Whey Sauce and the Cheesiest Mac and Cheese