Sourdough and Pickle Cakes

The stay-at-home mandate put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us the phrase “Quarantine 15.” Much like the Freshman 15 of college days, it refers to the weight gain that results from a drastic change in someone’s lifestyle.

Spend even a short amount of time on social media these days and you’ll see that many people are in their kitchens far more often than before the pandemic. If you weren’t tempted to go there on your own, the photos of the culinary creations folks are posting will make your own kitchen hard to resist.

I’ve never been much of a cook or baker. My mother set the bar so high that I figured it wasn’t even worth trying to follow in her footsteps. But I enjoy looking at what my Facebook friends are up to these days. Several of my male high school classmates are particularly prolific. While I’d expect them to be making some hearty fare for main courses, they seem to be putting as much time and effort into their desserts.

TV commercials have also taken note of the baking trend, and one trend in particular appears in several ads. “Why is everyone making sourdough now?” wonders an AT&T agent who is discussing upgrading to 5G with a client.  Of course, it has nothing to do with 5G, but it’s a great topical comment from the ad’s creative director.

A GEICO ad has been updated with a casual reference to this trend. A mother calls her son on his cell phone. She’s working on a jigsaw puzzle; he’s fending off multiple attackers as he waits for a helicopter to rescue him from a rooftop. Inserted into this latest version is the mom’s comment: “Your father’s learning to make sourdough.” In the original call in this campaign, she tells the son his father is researching genealogy. You can count on an ad agency creative to keep on top of the latest trends.

These commercials reflect a public fascination with sourdough during the pandemic. Google searches for “bread” recently hit all-time highs. For a period of time, a craft brewery in Toronto was giving away its sourdough starter for free with local beer deliveries, claiming to have passed out over 300 starters in a two week period in April.

Maybe it’s a consequence of cabin fever and boredom. Watching loaves of bread rise ever so slowly must be at least as interesting as watching paint dry. Apparently there’s some science behind it.  “Eating carbohydrate foods like bread stimulates insulin, which raises the uptake by the brain of the essential amino acid, tryptophan,” according to a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto. Tryptophan increases production of serotonin, which helps calm you in stressful times. Being able to eat more bread guilt-free might almost be worth being stuck at home. Just sayin’.

Another trend keeping folks tethered to their kitchens is cakes baked in unusual shapes. A New York Times article showed us cakes shaped and iced so realistically that you’d swear they are something else. The pickle cake was especially convincing, as were the onion and the cheeseburger slider. Times reporter Taylor Lorenz cited Natalie Sideserf, owner of Sideserf Cake Studio in Austin, Texas, who says many hyper-realistic cakes are made using fondant—a mix of sugar, water, gelatin and vegetable shortening, but claims she prefers to use chocolate molds.

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According to Lorenz, social media is filled with “hyper-realistic cake slicing videos.” The popularity of these videos seems to confirm the cabin fever/boredom explanation. Folks who have no interest in baking things themselves will sit transfixed in front of their computer screens, mesmerized by someone else slicing a bar of soap or a roll of toilet paper, only to reveal a cake inside.

For my part, I’d rather eat one of these marvels—whether it’s sourdough or a pickle cake—than watch it being made or sliced. So far, I haven’t found anyone who lives close enough to us to drop off any baked creations on our doorstep. If you’ve made something you’re willing to share, email me for my address. Just don’t expect me to make a video of us slicing it.

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