Katrina Niesen, known as The Sourdough Mama, is a full-time sourdough artist, educator, and content creator. Formerly an instructional designer, she left her career to pursue her passion for sourdough and transformed a creative outlet into a thriving business. Today, she teaches workshops, develops digital resources, and shares her bread art with a global audience. Most importantly, flower shapes are a big part of her creations.
Meet Katrina – The Sourdough Mama
Good Morning America has highlighted Katrina's work, showing how she utilizes sourdough to encourage creativity and connection, especially for new mothers. She tells the tale of how sourdough art helped her recover from postpartum depression. She helps bakers of all skill levels learn fermentation and creative scoring techniques through her captivating in-person and online classes.
Katrina is committed to making sourdough accessible, motivating, and fulfilling because she has profound knowledge about the art and science behind her work.
The Beginning of a Creative Journey With Flowers as a Source of Inspiration
In short, sourdough became her therapy. After giving birth to her daughter, Sophia, she experienced anxiety and postpartum depression. During that period, she discovered sourdough baking through Instagram and was drawn to the intricate designs created by scoring bread with a lame. What began as inspiration quickly turned into a weekly practice, as she baked consistently and improved her skills.
A therapeutic process
At the start of 2023, she set personal goals, one of which was to reconnect with her community and find a meaningful creative outlet outside the home. A pivotal moment came during a visit with a friend who asked if she could teach her how to make sourdough. That simple question sparked a bigger idea: sharing her knowledge with others.
Drawing from her background as a former teacher and instructional designer, she began developing her first workshop. Soon after, she was allowed to lead a beginner sourdough workshop at a local café that supports families, particularly new mothers. The response was immediate and enthusiastic, and the workshops quickly grew in demand.
Today, she teaches sourdough workshops throughout her community and online. While she continues to work in instructional design full-time, sourdough has evolved into a meaningful passion and thriving side venture.
An anemone sourdough bread
Floral Scoring and the Art of Sourdough Design
Katrina's sourdough practice is centered on scoring, where dough becomes a surface for detailed floral patterns. Using a lame, she carves leaves, stems, and petals directly into the loaf just before baking. The designs are planned, not improvised, often sketched or visualized in advance, with careful attention to symmetry, spacing, and depth.
The floral references come from real flower inspiration. Petal shapes, vine structures, and natural repetition guide each composition. During baking, the controlled expansion of the dough allows these cuts to open and define the final pattern, making timing and fermentation just as important as the design itself.
Although each loaf is meant to be baked and consumed, the appearance is deliberate. Her art is characterized by the harmony between softness and structure, contrast and constraint. Since no two loaves are the same, small differences in oven spring, temperature, or moisture are considered process instead of defects.
An impressive set of skills to be able to create this artistic piece
She does not consider flowery sourdough to be an after-the-fact adornment. From the beginning, it is included in the bread. The end product is functional food with a distinct visual language that is shaped by technique, repetition, and grand detail.
Have you ever seen such art on bread?
Photos and videos: @the.sourdough.mama.
