I Tried to Bake Sourdough and All I Got Was This Sentient Blob

The starter arrived in a small glass jar, bubbling away like a science experiment that had achieved consciousness. The woman at the farmer's market—let's call her Sarah, because that was her name—assured me it was "very active" and "practically foolproof." She said this while making direct eye contact, which should have been my first warning sign.

I paid her twelve dollars. Twelve dollars for what was essentially fermented flour paste. But I was optimistic. I'd watched approximately forty-seven YouTube videos on sourdough baking, bookmarked seventeen blog posts, and convinced myself that I, a person who once burned water, could master an ancient fermentation technique perfected over thousands of years. In a weekend.

The jar sat on my kitchen counter, gurgling ominously. I named it Gerald.

The Science of My Downfall

For those unfamiliar with sourdough, the process is deceptively simple: mix flour, water, and starter; wait; shape; bake. Four steps. How hard could it be?

Very hard, as it turns out.

The trouble began with hydration. In sourdough terms, hydration refers to the ratio of water to flour, expressed as a percentage. A 75% hydration dough means you're using 75 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour. According to The Perfect Loaf—a website run by people far more patient than I—higher hydration doughs (75-85%+) produce those beautiful, irregular holes that make sourdough Instagram-worthy. They also require "skill when handling," which is baker code for "you're going to regret this."

I chose an 80% hydration recipe. Because if I was going to fail, I was going to fail spectacularly.

The dough came together in my mixing bowl looking promising enough. Then I tried to knead it. Have you ever attempted to knead something with the consistency of thick pancake batter? It's not kneading so much as aggressive stirring while the mixture slowly creeps up your forearms like some kind of gluten-based alien parasite.

"The dough is very soupy and falling apart," warns The Perfect Loaf, describing over-hydrated dough. "You can see puddles of water that haven't been absorbed." Check and check. My kitchen counter looked like a crime scene, but for bread.

The blob—I can no longer in good conscience call it dough—refused to hold any shape whatsoever. I'd attempt to form it into a ball, and it would immediately collapse into a sad, sticky puddle. I tried folding it, as the videos instructed. The blob absorbed my hand. I tried adding flour. The blob became slightly grainier but no more cooperative.

At some point during hour two of what was supposed to be a "simple bulk fermentation," I realized the blob had achieved sentience. Not in any provable, scientific way, but in the way it seemed to mock my every attempt at control. I'd leave the room for ten minutes, return, and find it had somehow escaped the boundaries of the bowl and was making a break for the edge of the counter.

A Brief History of My Kitchen Disasters

This was not my first culinary catastrophe. I have a long and distinguished history of enthusiastically starting cooking projects that end in bewilderment and takeout.

There was the time I tried to make croissants and ended up with what could best be described as buttery rocks. The ill-fated dumpling experiment of 2019, which resulted in forty-seven individual lumps of dough that dissolved upon contact with boiling water. The birthday cake that emerged from the oven having collapsed so thoroughly in the center that it resembled a Bundt cake, except I hadn't used a Bundt pan.

The problem, I've come to realize, is patience. Or rather, my complete lack of it.

Sourdough demands patience in ways I find personally offensive. Wild yeast operates on its own schedule, indifferent to your plans, your hunger, or your misguided belief that you can rush fermentation by turning up the heat. According to Serious Eats, a healthy starter "should triple, or even quadruple in volume in a short period of time under the right conditions (for example, 4-6 hours at 80°F/27°C, fed at 1:2:2)."

Four to six hours. For one stage of the process.

I am not a person who waits four to six hours for anything except possibly sleep, and even then I resent it.

But I pressed on, because I am nothing if not stubborn. The blob completed its bulk fermentation—or at least, I decided it had completed bulk fermentation based on the fact that I was tired of looking at it. The recipe called for the dough to increase by 50% in volume. My blob had spread horizontally by what I estimated to be 200%, so I called that close enough.

The Great Shaping Debacle

Shaping is where skilled bakers create surface tension in the dough, forming a taut skin that helps the loaf rise properly in the oven. According to Alexandra's Kitchen, a popular sourdough blog, "Creating good tension during shaping" is essential for oven spring—that glorious moment when bread puffs up dramatically in the heat.

The blog recommends using an un-floured work surface and a bench scraper. I had neither. What I did have was a wooden cutting board dusted with far too much flour (a panicked response to the stickiness) and a butter knife.

I attempted to shape the blob into a boule, which is French for "round loaf" and also apparently French for "hahaha, good luck with that." The videos I'd watched made it look graceful, almost meditative. Skilled hands folding and tucking, creating structure and tension, treating the dough with gentle confidence.

I mostly wrestled with it.

The blob would not cooperate. Every time I tried to tuck an edge underneath, another edge would escape. It was like trying to gift-wrap a water balloon. After fifteen minutes of increasingly desperate attempts, I managed to form something vaguely round-ish. It immediately slumped.

"Sticky puddle is a sign of over fermentation," notes Alexandra's Kitchen. My blob was definitely over-fermented. It may also have been over-hydrated, under-strengthened, and possibly cursed. At this point, multiple causes seemed likely.

I placed the blob into a bowl lined with a heavily floured tea towel—my improvised banneton basket—and shoved it into the refrigerator for its overnight cold proof. The fridge door closed on what I desperately hoped would be a redemptive rest period but suspected was more accurately described as temporary containment.

The Moment of Truth (and Crushing Disappointment)

Baking day arrived with the kind of beautiful morning light that makes you believe anything is possible. I preheated my Dutch oven to 500°F, as instructed. The internet assured me that a Dutch oven creates "a sealed, radiant-heat environment" with "the perfect amount of steam."

I retrieved the blob from the refrigerator. It had not miraculously transformed into proper dough. If anything, it looked sadder and more defeated, like it knew what was coming.

Scoring—the practice of slashing the dough's surface before baking—is supposed to control how the loaf expands in the oven. Professional bakers wield special curved blades called lames and create beautiful patterns: wheat stalks, leaves, geometric designs. I had a very sharp kitchen knife and hope.

I made one slash across the top of the blob. The knife sank in disturbingly deep. The blob didn't so much accept the cut as absorb it, healing almost immediately like some kind of wheat-based T-1000.

Into the scorching Dutch oven it went.

The instructions said to bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 15-20 minutes until the internal temperature reached 207°F. I set timers. I paced. I peered through the oven window, trying to detect signs of the miraculous transformation that was supposed to be occurring inside that cast-iron chamber.

After 30 minutes, I removed the lid.

What greeted me was not the golden, crackling, artisan masterpiece of my imagination. It was a pale, dense, vaguely round object that had achieved approximately zero oven spring. No dramatic rise. No crackling crust. No rustic, flour-dusted beauty.

It looked exactly like what it was: proof that I had not, in fact, mastered ancient fermentation in a single weekend.

I let it bake the full time, hoping that at least thorough cooking might salvage something. When I finally removed it from the oven, the thermometer read 208°F. Technically perfect. Visually devastating.

What the Blob Taught Me About Being Human

Here's the thing about spectacular failure: it's remarkably educational.

Once I stopped mourning my lost sourdough dreams and actually cut into the loaf, I could diagnose exactly what had gone wrong. The crumb—baker speak for the interior texture—was dense and gummy in places, which according to Alexandra's Kitchen happens when dough is "overly hydrated" or "over ferments." Both applied. There were a few sad, scattered holes, evidence that some fermentation had occurred, but mostly it was just... compact.

The crust was pale and floury, a consequence of using wheat flour for dusting instead of rice flour, which "does not burn the way wheat flour does." Another lesson learned too late.

I'd used too much water for my flour and climate. I'd let the bulk fermentation go too long. I'd failed to build adequate gluten structure through proper folding. I'd shaped poorly, creating insufficient surface tension. I'd probably used my starter before it reached peak strength, despite Gerald's enthusiastic bubbling.

But here's what surprised me: I wasn't actually that upset.

Somewhere between the sticky dough phase and the disappointing bake, my expectations had shifted. I'd entered this project with visions of Instagram-perfect loaves, of casually mentioning at dinner parties that I bake my own sourdough, of achieving bread enlightenment through sheer determination and YouTube tutorials.

What I got instead was a thorough education in humility, chemistry, and the importance of reading your environment. All flours absorb water differently, the sources repeatedly emphasized. Environment matters. Humidity matters. Temperature matters. Patience—always patience—matters most of all.

The Perfect Loaf recommends that bakers "develop sensitivity or baker's intuition" and "keep notes to record hydration, dough feel, weather, and final loaf outcome." This is not a weekend project. This is a practice. A discipline. A long conversation between you and flour and wild yeast and time.

I am not good at long conversations. I'm good at enthusiastic sprints followed by distraction. But there's something appealing about the idea of getting better slowly, of building intuition through repeated failure, of eventually—maybe—producing something genuinely good.

A Love Letter to the Local Bakery

The blob sits on my counter as I write this, having achieved room temperature and a texture best described as "aggressively chewy." I tried a slice with butter. It was... bread-adjacent. Edible in the technical sense. Not good.

I will not be bringing it to any dinner parties. I will not be posting photos on Instagram. I will most likely be bringing it to my local park and leaving it for the ducks, who have lower standards.

But I'm keeping Gerald, the starter. And I'm keeping the notes I took: "Too wet. Let bulk go 6 hours—way too long. Shaping disaster. Maybe try 70% hydration next time? Use actual banneton? Watch more videos on folding technique."

Because here's the secret they don't tell you in the YouTube videos: failure is fine. Failure is, in fact, the entire point. Every collapsed loaf teaches you something. Every sticky, unmanageable blob of dough is information. Every dense, gummy crumb is a roadmap showing you exactly what not to do next time.

Will there be a next time? Almost certainly. Am I a fool for trying again? Probably.

But I've also learned something valuable about patience, about process, about the weird satisfaction of attempting something difficult for no reason except the challenge itself. Plus, Gerald needs to eat, and it seems cruel to abandon him now after everything we've been through together.

In the meantime, I'll be at the farmers market, buying bread from Sarah and other people who actually know what they're doing. No shame in that. Their bread is delicious, their hydration percentages are on point, and they've probably made peace with the fact that sourdough operates on its own schedule.

Maybe one day I'll join their ranks. Maybe one day I'll produce a loaf with a crackling crust and that perfect, custardy crumb. Maybe one day I'll develop the baker's intuition that comes from months or years of practice.

Or maybe I'll just keep making blobs and learning from them. Either way, it's going to be a long, slow, occasionally hilarious journey.

Gerald gurgles in agreement.