It all started with a harmless photo of a freshly baked sourdough loaf that a friend posted. He said it was “good with butter.” Cool, I thought. I tapped the photo to like it and then scrolled past.
A few days later, a different friend posted a photo, this time, of their sourdough starter. Two photos were all I needed to ask: What even is a sourdough?
So, I did what would soon change my life: I searched for “sourdough” on Instagram.
I fed the algorithm.
Just like that, my explore feed was immediately filled with photos and videos of sourdough starters, sourdough art, sourdough selfies—sourdough everything! The dog photos have turned into crumb shots. Yoga videos were now bread scoring slow motion shots. My Instagram ads were no longer coming from retail brands, they were now from online flour stores.
And what am I to do? The algorithm has obviously decided what my fate would be!
I took an old pasta sauce jar and tried to grow my own starter. Following tips from Instagram posts and comments, my starter was soon doubling, and then tripling in size. It took seven days of daily feeding. That was easy!
And since my starter was fairly easy to grow, I also expected my first sourdough loaf to be just as straightforward. I mean, I’ve already seen 251 Instagram videos of different sourdough shaping techniques! It can’t be that hard, right? Never mind that my only experience with bread was making banana bread.
To no one’s surprise, my first sourdough loaf was a disaster. It had zero rise and it was rock hard when it cooled that I couldn’t even slice it! It was painful having to throw my loaf in the trash knowing that I spent so much time on it but there was absolutely no way any living creature (that’s not a pest) could consume that.
I tried again.
With zero expectations this time, I decided to reduce the dough’s hydration. I had no idea what “hydration” was at the time but apparently, according to one baking influencer, reducing the water content should make the dough more manageable.
It rose beautifully. It didn’t have an ear (the crunchy flap that forms and peels back while the loaf is baking) but it was edible. Like, avocado toast edible! Whaaaat. The best part? It also looked pretty enough for Instagram!
This euphoria (also known as temporary overconfidence) of getting something right was what got me to start an actual baking checklist. From croissants to sourdough cinnamon rolls, I wanted to try baking them all!
I learned how much of a pain in the ass making croissants are and how it’s probably better for me to just fork over a couple bucks at a local bakery instead of slaving over two days just for me to inhale it all in half a day. Meanwhile, even though making coffee buns involves 73 steps, the recipe is reliable, it doesn’t take forever and a day to make, and gives you these absolutely soft and buttery, fluffy buns. The best part? No bakery in my city sells them.
But if there’s one thing I’m in a love-hate relationship with, it’s got to be sourdough. Remember when I got it right the second time? I thought that meant I’ve “mastered” it. And what a revelation it has been. Many weekends later, I’m still here trying to figure out why my loaf didn’t rise as much, why my scoring failed, or why it just looked like a sad, burnt piece of round blob.
For reasons I’m still trying to understand, despite its never ending set of challenges, I keep wanting to make sourdough loaves. At this point, I don’t know if it’s pride or just genuine joy from making them. Either way it’s become one of my favorite things to make. Maybe baking is making me crazy but there’s something about the long process of preparing your dough and then getting that sweet reward of a beautiful (or horrifying) loaf at the end of all of it.
But anyway, my plan was to take it slow and bake one new thing each weekend. But then I started seeing something become extremely popular in Manila… No, not the face shields—the ube cheese pandesal trend happened.
Variations of the ube pandesal were on my feed every single day: ube cheese pandesal, ube leche flan pandesal, ube macapuno pandesal. What can you not put inside an ube pandesal? I couldn’t just sit and look at them!
While I was lucky enough to find a local ube jam seller in North Carolina, it turns out finding ube jam was the least of my ube pandesal problems. It still took me three long weekends of failure after failure before I ended up with a presentable ube pandesal.
Once I had my first successful ube pandesal though, I decided a new challenge was in order. Why not make my life 10 times harder and send these baked goods to friends? Receiving baked goods in the mail sounded like a much needed break from this terrible year.
That was almost eight weeks ago.
I have since sent a variety of pastries and bread to friends all over the US. And before you think this is a baking success story, please know that to this day, if there’s one thing I’m consistent at doing, it’s having baking fails every single weekend.
Thanks to Instagram, I’ve been on this uncontrollable cycle of baking for the last four months. So if you’ll excuse me... I still have to refresh my feed to check for new baking inspo I can try and “nail.”
✺ Words and photos by Peanut Dela Cruz
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AN ABSOLUTE N00B AT BAKING, PEANUT HAD ZERO EXPERIENCE MAKING ANYTHING THAT INVOLVED THE OVEN SIX MONTHS AGO. THESE DAYS, THANKS TO THIS QUARANTINE LIFE, YOU CAN FIND HER ON INSTAGRAM PLAYING YET ANOTHER WEEKEND GAME OF: DID I BOTCH THIS BREAD OR NOT? CATCH HER BAKING ADVENTURES ON @SKUSHNO!
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