My first sourdough starter grew mold. My second one became Sedna and now she’s living in kitchens beyond my own.
If you told me last year that I would eventually be making and selling sourdough starter, I probably would have laughed.
I love watching TikTok videos, and last year I started coming across all these sourdough videos. People were making these beautiful, crusty loaves with those pretty little scoring designs on top, and I was intrigued.
I wanted to try it myself.
But before you can make sourdough bread, there’s one important thing you need: a sourdough starter.
So I tried making one from scratch.
And I failed.
My first starter actually made it to 12 days, but then I forgot to feed it. It eventually grew mold, and that was the end of that. I didn’t even try again for months.
Then one day, I made regular bread for Facebook.
I shaped it like a sourdough loaf.
You could definitely tell I had watched WAY too many sourdough videos. Haha!
But then something happened that made me want to try again.
One of my loyal followers commented that they thought I would be great at making sourdough bread.
It was such a simple comment, but sometimes you don’t realize how much encouragement can mean until someone gives you that little push you needed.
So I decided to try again.
And that’s when Sedna was born on June 3, 2026.
She started with nothing but flour and water.
Today, she’s strong, healthy, and living in many kitchens 🥹
And honestly, getting here wasn’t as easy as it looks.
When I first started, I didn’t have a Dutch oven. I didn’t have all the fancy sourdough tools. I didn’t even have parchment paper.
So I improvised.
I took two oven pans and put them together to make my own makeshift Dutch oven.
Did it work?
Yes.
Was my bread perfectly shaped?
Absolutely not. 😂
But it was bread!
And that was good enough for me.
I also don’t really measure.
I’m used to making bannock without measuring, so I naturally started approaching sourdough the same way. Sometimes I’ll add more flour than I intended, sometimes more water, and sometimes I’ll look at my dough and think, Well… I guess we’re doing this now.
And somehow, it still becomes bread.
That’s probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned from this journey: you can do a lot with what you already have.
Sourdough can seem really complicated when you’re watching videos online. There are measurements, hydration percentages, stretch and folds, scoring techniques, special tools, Dutch ovens, bannetons and all kinds of things I had never even heard of when I started.
But I’ve learned that sourdough doesn’t have to be as complicated as people sometimes make it seem.
You can learn as you go.
You can mess up.
You can experiment.
You can use what you have.
And you can try again.
My first starter growing mold didn’t mean I couldn’t make sourdough.
It just meant I wasn’t done learning yet.
And now I’m still learning.
I’m going to be sharing more of my sourdough journey here from the breads that turn out beautifully to the ones that don’t go exactly as planned. I’ll share my experiments, recipes, measurements when I actually use them, and probably plenty of “I don’t know what I’m doing, but let’s see what happens” moments too.
Because that’s really how I’ve learned to bake.
And if there’s one thing I hope you take from my sourdough journey, it’s this:
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you start.
Sometimes you just need flour, water, a little patience, and someone who believes you can do it.
Welcome to my sourdough journey.
And welcome to Sedna’s story.
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