Photos used with permission from Rikki Washington
If you’ve been in the sourdough world long enough, you know that adding color to your loaves is nothing new.
From swirling rainbow loaves to deep, moody purples and blues, adventurous bakers love experimenting with natural dyes.
But Rikki Washington recently took things to another level with her viral post in the Facebook group Sourdough for Beginners, where she shared her experience testing out 12 different natural colors in sourdough.
The result? A batch of vibrantly colored mini loaves—and some hilariously honest taste reviews.
Washington shaped her colorful dough into small balls and placed them in a muffin tin for bulk fermentation. After a cold proof overnight, she baked them in the morning and put their flavors to the test.
Some were winners, while others… well, let’s just say they won’t be making a comeback in her kitchen.
“I did experiments with natural colors in sourdough! Most I used 1/4 tsp-ish in 150g dough. Butterfly Pea, cocoa, and black cocoa I used 1/2 tsp,” she wrote in her post.
“Some of the colors are a bit streaky because the dough did not cooperate with the powder, but if you mixed them into the water before flour I am sure it would be much better.”
So, which colors are worth trying?
According to Washington’s taste test, ube (purple sweet potato), butterfly pea (blue), and dragonfruit (pink) were all flavorless, making them ideal choices for vibrant loaves.
But a few had unexpected surprises.
- Green Spirulina? “Slight algae taste.”
- Matcha? “Green tea taste.”
- Turmeric? “Turmeric/curry taste.”
- And the real showstopper—Salina? “Tastes like a fish tank.”
That last one sent the comments section into fits of laughter, with many people comparing it to SpongeBob SquarePants’ infamous Pretty Patties. One commenter even posted a meme of SpongeBob holding out a rainbow palette of burgers.
But Washington never expected her colorful experiment to take off the way it did. We reached out, and here’s what she had to say:
“I wanted to make a tie-dye bread for my kids that I saw online, but with natural colorings. I couldn’t find much about how the colors worked in sourdough other than people saying the acidic environment and high temps can change the pigments, so I decided to just figure it out myself.”
“I documented everything and posted it in the hopes that next time someone wanted to know how to naturally color sourdough, they didn’t have to figure it out again.”
She continued, “I never expected the post to get so popular, it was really just me messing around with colors. I am glad so many people learned from it!”
While some commenters cheered on Washington’s dedication to science, others shared their own adventures (and misadventures) in sourdough dyeing.
Some noted that to get a marbled effect, you have to dye separate dough portions and layer them before shaping—an approach commonly seen on Instagram from bakers like @onyeastwefeast.
As for Washington? She hasn’t given up on colorful sourdough yet.
“I took a photo of the tasteless ones I will definitely use again,” she wrote. “Maybe I will make some tie-dye bread soon!”
So if you’ve ever wanted to bake a loaf that looks like a work of art, take some inspiration from Washington’s experiment—just maybe skip the fish tank flavor.
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