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.

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.

6th Annual Sourdough Giveaway

On January 5, 2023December 27, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Giveaway, sourdough2 Comments

Welcome to the 6th Annual Sourdough Giveaway! I’ve been sharing my starter every January since I started this blog, but last year’s giveaway broke all of my records, with 154 sourdough packets leaving my kitchen and heading out into the world.

Many of those packets went to readers of my Twice as Tasty column in the Flathead Beacon, so thank you for supporting local journalism, as well as reading my column and blog. Twice as Tasty starter has now traveled to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Slovenia, and throughout the United States, and I hope to share it with even more new sourdough bakers this year. Request your starter by the end of January to get in on the sourdough adventures.
Read more about starting with sourdough

Sticking with Sourdough

On January 28, 2021January 27, 2021 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Giveaway, Topic5 Comments

Sourdough baking should fit into your lifestyle and let you build a habit of using it. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
Another Twice as Tasty sourdough giveaway is winding down; there are just a few days left to get your starter. This month, I delivered jars of bubbly starter to local bakers and shipped dehydrated starter as far away as Slovenia. People have been sharing their creations of longtime and new Twice as Tasty recipes, including this month’s cracker, cookie, and ciabatta recipes and variations. I’m excited to see what everyone makes in the coming months.

For some of you, just remembering your starter may be the biggest challenge as the year takes off. Sourdough baking should fit into your lifestyle and let you build a habit of using your starter often enough to keep it lively. It may take a few attempts, and I’m always happy to resend starter if you need a fresh try. But a sourdough culture is more resilient than you think. So as life distracts you from baking, you have several options to bring your starter back to life.
Read more about sticking with sourdough

Sourdough Ciabatta & Bread Variations

On January 21, 2021January 21, 2021 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Giveaway, Topic1 Comment

With a handful of easily mastered recipes, including Sourdough Ciabatta, you can make every batch of sourdough look and taste unique. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
Long before I got hooked on sourdough, I made yeast-based Italian slipper bread using Patricia Wells’s Trattoria. I used the recipe from the 1993 edition of her book without changes because it is so good.

Once I started into sourdough, I fell for the flavor and texture of long-ferment loaves, and Sourdough Cabin Bread, aka Auntie Julie’s Special Bread, became my go-to recipe. But one day I flipped passed the slipper bread recipe and was inspired to create a version that could use sourdough starter.

Wells describes Italian slipper bread, or ciabatta, as “ideal for those who want great flavor in a hurry.” This sourdough version takes a little more time to build than a yeast loaf but far less than long-ferment doughs that spend hours to days in the fridge. It’s definitely a high-hydration dough: expect it to be wet, sticky, and hard to shape. Your final loaf will look different every time, with lots of holes inside, and will cool and be ready to eat more quickly than denser loaves.
Learn to make Sourdough Ciabatta and bread variations

Sourdough Cookies

On January 14, 2021January 14, 2021 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Giveaway, Topic2 Comments

Putting sourdough starter in cookies bumps up against some problems, but you can solve them. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
Sourdough cookies, like last week’s sourdough cracker recipe, have two goals: capture some sour flavor and use your starter. Sourdough’s leavening power doesn’t take charge: you’re still relying on baking soda, baking powder, or both to create the cookies’ shape. That puts them in the same category as Sourdough Pancakes, Sourdough Waffles, and quick breads.

But unlike those baked goods, putting sourdough starter in cookies bumps up against some problems. Most cookies have a low hydration level—they have little or no added liquid. The “wet” ingredients they do have usually contain fats, proteins, and other elements that balance the cookie recipe. This week, I focus on things I’ve learned about baking cookies with sourdough and the best recipes to use with your starter.
Learn to make sourdough cookies

Sourdough Crackers

On January 7, 2021January 20, 2021 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, Giveaway, Topic3 Comments

My master recipe lets you make cheese, wheat, herb, rye, and more. Get sourdough crackers recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
If you jumped on the sourdough bandwagon last spring by making your own starter from scratch, chances are you’ve already experimented with “discard” recipes like crackers. When you take weeks to build a starter from just flour and water, you end up with a lot weak starter that many instructions advise you to throw out—and in my opinion, it’s the only time you should. Since my sourdough adventures started with a dormant gifted starter, I don’t toss starter, never clamored for discard recipes, and began baking bread long before I fell for sourdough crackers.

I started baking sourdough crackers for one reason: George loves Goldfish crackers. He’ll plow through a box of the cheesy bites in a sitting, so of course my thought was, “How can I make these—and make them better?” This led me to develop a master recipe whose techniques I now use for a variety of crackers: cheese, wheat, herb, rye, and more.
Learn to make cheesy and other sourdough crackers