So happy I made this purchase! The chocolate noir loaf was amazing. Making chocolate sourdough brownies tomorrow!
Our LIVE 119 Year Old Valrhona Chocolate Sourdough Starter & Recipes
Our LIVE 119 Year Old Valrhona Chocolate Sourdough Starter & Recipes
Regular price
$26.50
Regular price
$29.00
Sale price
$26.50
Unit price
per
Couldn't load pickup availability
Our Community
Handmade
Ready To Use Sourdough
Easy Baking Process
Description
Description
Our 119 Year Old Valrhona Chocolate Sourdough Starter:
And Get Started Baking Immediately!
Baking Sourdough Bread can sometimes feel out of reach, because starting a sourdough starter and building its strength requires time, patience, and sometimes a little luck. But, opening your jar of our LIVE sourdough starter changes the game completely, and gives you great results right away.
Made from our 119-year-old legacy starter and fed with rich dark Valrhona cocoa, its fermented chocolate flavor, significantly intensifies any chocolate baked good, and is guaranteed to give reliable results — just like our original.
Our established starter is resilient, she fits into real life.
Go on vacation. Take a break. Keep her in the refrigerator. Don’t worry about one missed feeding destroying months of work.
Have complete confidence in your baking, or gift it to the baker in your life. This is an heirloom sourdough starter you, can keep for years.
When I inherited this starter 19 years ago, everything changed.
Sometimes what’s missing isn’t another recipe or another bag of flour. It’s simply a strong, established starter you can rely on.
Our 119-year-old starter is active, STRONG, resilient, and wildly reliable—giving you the chance to skip the months of trial and error and start baking with confidence.
Ready to see sourdough success?
Why Ours?
Our starter is carefully maintained and hand-packed daily, not mass produced. We feed her with just two simple, high-quality ingredients:I
• Organic King Arthur All-Purpose Flour & High Quality Valrhona Cocoa Powder
• Filtered water
That’s it.
She arrives LIVE and ready to feed, so you can get your sourdough journey started without spending weeks or months trying to establish a starter from scratch.
And if you’re wondering whether she’ll give you the results you’re looking for, just check our reviews!
Thousands of bakers have already trusted our starter in their kitchens around the world!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Happy Baking! ❤️
Vidya,
Little Ranch Family
📦 International customers: Please see our dehydrated starter option.
What She’s Fed With
What She’s Fed With
What’s Inside
What’s Inside
The Story Behind “The Bitch”
This starter has been alive since 1907 and has only lived in three households—mine included. I received the last remaining portion of her as a birthday gift from my half-brother. It belonged to his grandmother and had already been in her family for a century.
At the time, I had just finished culinary school and was working as a young chef in San Francisco. One of the books that inspired me to become a chef as a child—Kitchen Confidential by the late Anthony Bourdain—told a story about a starter named “The Bitch.” She made incredible bread. So does ours.
This starter is a piece of our family, and we’re honored to share her with you. When she arrives in your home, we encourage you to name her—make her part of your own story. She’s meant everything to us, and we know she’ll mean something to you too.
Customer Reviews
Customer Reviews
Overall rating: 4.9 / 5 from 134 reviews.
This was my 2nd time ever making bread and it came out so great! Great starter and easy to follow directions
I made the chocolate noir bread today with my chocolate sourdough starter and it is AMAZING!
I bought both "the bitch" spawn and and her chocolaty sista. Named for each of my grandmothers who taught and inspired me to bake and cook.. and eventually go to culinary school. I have tried making my own starters in the past, with terrible outcomes and many tears. So thank you for saving me further frustration with these amazing legacy starters. Both are sleepy and happy, as am I, from making and eating the wonderful bread spawned from the great Mother. My house smells wonderful and not toxic from bad starter! I can't thank you enough.
Chocolate Chocolate Raisin
Took me a while to realize the “first feed” isn’t the maintenance feed. Finally read the maintenance instructions ;). I keep the starter on the fridge. Enough to have about 250 grams. Used the chocolate sourdough noir recipe, the loves turned out pretty darn good.
Awesome starter! This photo is after feeding and placing in fridge to slow growth! Its crazy active. This is wonderful customer serv because it took replacing BOTH my ordered starters (long shipping time to get to me rurally)and both starters came really dehydrated from ship times. But company made it right and stuck with me all through process. You will not regret ordering starter from this company!! And cust serv is 180% awesome!! The only thing I would ask for diff is a sheet of directions with the starter instead of an rmail link to print yourself. But thats an older persons perspective and choice! They deserve more than 5 stars!
Love this chocolate sourdough starter! It took quite a long time and 2 attempts to get it to me (to be fair someone along postal route probably kept) 2nd attempt finally got to me and it was very dried out but with helpful customer service dept. helped me revive it and its working GREAT. Best tasting sourdough ever!! I am waiting for my new plain sourdough starter now, can’t wait!!! And now that I have instructions on how to revive that one it should be a walk in the park! My only suggestion is that they should consider putting a leaflet in with your order on how to revive the starter!
Came fast easy to read instructions. Hope to bake with it this weekend.
I’m so happy I found your instagram page. I bought both starters and I’m amazed at how heathy and strong they are. My bread and bagels have turned out delicious. I’m getting so many compliments on how they taste. I’m telling everyone I know about your starters because that’s what made my bread and bagels so yummy. Thank you for sharing your starters with us all.
Thank you for sending a second starter with no charge due to the first one being damaged. You are the best and I highly recommend this small business to anyone looking to start their sourdough journey!! I’m looking forward to bake my first chocolate loaf!!
I was born and raised in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and I made this specialty sourdough bread for a breakfast get-together with my high school friends. It was the perfect way to celebrate our reunion and enjoy something warm, homemade, and delicious together.
I have not yet baked with my starter due to life events but actually just pulled her out of the fridge to wake and feed her. I can't wait to bake with her this week! Name is TBD. ;) Package came and packaged well with instructions.
Love this Choc starter! Highly recommend!
Chocolate sourdough starter came with directions that made it easy for a first time sourdough baker. The chocolate noir bread is very good. The chocolate sourdough cake is beyond delicious!!
This starter has been my GAME CHANGER to sourdough bread baking! After trying for months to make my own starter it just wasn't getting there so I ordered online. I now have the chocolate starter as well! Thank you! Great customer service and easy to work with!
Thank you for an amazing product and recipe for Chocolate Noir loaf! It was absolutely delicious!!
It was divine! Smooth and active (happy)! Recipe for the chocolate loaf was exceptional! My family loved it!!
I got the chocolate sourdough starter and it was 100% worth every penny. The cake I made with it was the most delicious cake!! I can't wait to see what else I can make with it. The directions for managing the starter were very easy to follow and the shipping was quite fast!
The best tasting chocolate chocolate chip sour dough! So super happy with my chocolate sour dough and my husband named her Cocoa Chanel. Lol
I actually added this to my already existing starter and can see a bubbly difference.
A very happy mail day 🧺🤍 Inside: a 118-year-old sourdough starter, a chocolate sourdough starter, and all my baking dreams coming true. Thank you, @littleranchfamily—this feels like receiving a tiny piece of magic 🍞
This cake is insanely delicious!
Arrived quickly, I fed it and she grew quickly considering the frigid temps while shipping and I can’t wait to bake with her.
This baby girl got reactivated right away and I made this very moist and fluffy chocolate cake with the recipe provided. Couldn't be happier!
Oh my gosh, this made the BEST chocolate choclate chip strawberry sourdough bread!! I huge hit with family and friends. The d discard made a really amazing scones as well!! Starting with your starter made thr great of took the fear of making sourdough bread right out of me!! Thank you!!
it has been a joy to play around with my chocolate starter. It calms my anxiety.
I made the brownies using the chocolate starter and it was the best I ever eaten
I absolutely love this chocolate sourdough starter and recipe this was my first ever sourdough loaf ever and it was such a great experience!! And delicious my 3 year old loved it as well thank you so much for sharing your chocolate starter !!
So excited!! They're both waking up after shipping and they look and smell amazing already. Bonus points for the FREE recipes... Can't wait to bake them all. Especially the chocolate cake 😋. Excellent experience from start to finish. Owner went above and beyond with customer service! Will absolutely be shopping with The Little Ranch Family again.
Omg ! This was the best experience ever ! I love the process followed every step and the result was amazing! Best loaf ever ! Thank you so much 😊!
I just wanted to share that I fed the starter, and it rose very quickly. This is already my second feed, and it’s gone up beautifully. It’s amazing how active and alive it still is, especially after such a long time in shipping.
Used my chocolate sourdough starter to make these spooky mini cakes!
Delicious!!
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter
This chocolate starter is excellent and is thriving. I am baking my first loaf of bread with her this week. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter
This is by far the best sourdough starter!!! If you haven’t ordered this chocolate starter. Hurry, run and order it! You will not be disappointed!! Little Ranch Family is the best!!!
Already made chocolate waffles with it. We love it.
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter
A Joyful Experience for a Beginner Baker 🌟 I had an absolute blast making the Sourdough Chocolate Noir recipe! I doubled the batch, expecting four mini loaves, but they rose beautifully—tall, proud, and full of character. As someone who's only been baking bread for about 3–4 months, I'm still learning the ropes, but this experience was truly special. When I ran into a few beginner questions, the company was incredibly supportive—kind, responsive, and genuinely happy to help troubleshoot. That kind of encouragement makes all the difference when you're just starting out. This is a company that not only delivers a fantastic product but also fosters a sense of community and care. I’m so glad I found them. Highly recommend!
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter
I really enjoyed the process of making this bread! and thank you for answering my questions timely!
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter
What a treat! The moment you open the packaging your senses are delighted with the rich yeasty aroma of sourdough and chocolate. Just finished following the instructions on feeding and looking forward to baking some delicious baked bread. Thank you for sharing this heritage starter with us!
Little Ranch Family's Live 118 Year Old Valrhona CHOCOLATE Sourdough Starter