Sourdough was supposed to be a short-lived pandemic hobby, same as banana bread and dalgona coffee, but home bakers kept baking anyway. Years later, they’re still feeding the same starters, and bread is no longer the only place all that effort goes.
A full year of search data shows rising interest in sourdough baking across every related term measured, from the classic loaf to pizza crust to weekend baking classes. That obsession shows up everywhere else, too. Bakers track hydration percentages and oven spring like a science experiment, swap starter genealogies in online forums and show up to work with a loaf tucked under one arm because apparently that’s normal now.
The original obsession hasn’t faded
Sourdough bread is the version of this trend nobody needed convincing about. Bakers who picked up the hobby in 2020 kept feeding their starters long after banana bread fell out of favor, turning a pandemic project into a standing weekend ritual.
Home ovens now turn out boules and batards with the same care once reserved for special occasions, and homemade sourdough bread searches have climbed 217% over the past year. Interest is spreading past the classic loaf too, with searches for sourdough croissants up 124% and sourdough bagels up 64%. The appeal comes down to tang, chew and the kind of control that comes from managing a living culture instead of a packet of yeast.
A tangy twist takes over the pastry case
Cinnamon rolls show how far this trend has traveled beyond bread. Swapping a standard yeasted dough for a fermented sourdough base adds a tang that cuts through the sugar and butter, and sourdough cinnamon roll searches have jumped 646% over the past year. Overnight fermentation makes the format approachable, letting home bakers wake up to a tray already proofed and ready for the oven. The pairing makes a simple point: sourdough was never really about the loaf but the technique.
Crust culture picks up the fermentation habit
Pizza might be doing the most to pull sourdough out of the bread aisle entirely. A naturally leavened crust behaves differently than a standard dough, developing a lighter, more open crumb and a deeper flavor from the longer fermentation time, and searches for “sourdough pizza near me” have climbed 511% over the past year. Fermentation timing is exactly the kind of patience sourdough bakers already understand, which makes the crossover into pizza dough a fairly natural next step.
Frustrated bakers turn to hands-on help
Not every home baker figured this out alone, and that gap has become an opportunity. Hobbyists who struggled with a sluggish starter or a dense loaf are increasingly turning to hands-on classes instead of troubleshooting through video tutorials, and searches for sourdough classes are up 92% over the past year.
That demand has opened the door for classes at local bakeries, flour shops and online, covering everything from building a starter from scratch to shaping and scoring a loaf before it goes in the oven. For bakers who hit a wall on their own, structured instruction offers what recipe cards cannot: the chance to ask questions in real time and see a technique corrected in the moment.
The bigger appetite behind the trend
Sourdough’s rise is unfolding as consumers rethink what counts as healthy food. Separate research shows the share of consumers who define a healthy food as having minimal or no processing climbed from 20% to 28% between 2022 and 2025, while the share who prioritize limited or no artificial ingredients rose from 18% to 25% over the same period. A four-ingredient loaf made from flour, water, salt and a wild culture fits neatly into that definition.
A starter this old was supposed to have fizzled out years ago. Five years in, it looks more like a foundation bakers keep building on, one format at a time. The next place it turns up probably will not be a loaf pan. It will be whatever a home baker with a healthy starter and a little patience decides to try next.
Mandy Applegate is the creator behind Splash of Taste and seven other high-profile food and travel blogs. She’s also the co-founder of Food Drink Life Inc., a unique and highly rewarding collaborative blogger project. Her articles appear frequently on major online news sites, and she always has her eyes open to spot the next big trend.