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

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.

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

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

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

Sourdough Cabin Bread

On January 27, 2022December 27, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdough2 Comments

This week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon wraps up Sourdough Month, which has been a resounding success. I’ve sent out more than 100 packets of sourdough starter, and there are still a few days left of the giveaway. If you’re just now learning about the giveaway, you can read about it and my starter in this blog post.

To round out the month, I’m sharing my first and still favorite sourdough bread recipe. My niece and nephew initially called it Auntie Julie’s Special Bread, because they only ate it when I visited with a loaf. It’s lost that title now that my brother-in-law bakes with sourdough starter. It may be less special, but that doesn’t make it any less delicious.
Learn to make Sourdough Cabin Bread

5th Annual Sourdough Giveaway

On January 6, 2022December 27, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, sourdough3 Comments

It’s January, which means Sourdough Month here on Twice as Tasty—and the 5th Annual Sourdough Giveaway! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been sending my sourdough starter out into the world for so many years. I’ve been committed to sharing my starter every January since I started the blog, with additional packets distributed during the extended giveaway last year and occasional random requests throughout each year. Twice as Tasty starter has now traveled to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Slovenia, and throughout the United States.

This year, I’m excited to share sourdough starter across the world but also closer to home. I’m offering my starter and will be sharing sourdough recipes all month through my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, as well as here on the blog. Request your starter by January 31 to get in on the sourdough adventures.
Read more about starting with sourdough