you may remember my first foray into homemade yogurt.
well, now i have a “yaourtiere,” which is french for yogurt maker. [thank you, MH!] how retro and fun, right?!
the process for making yogurt with an official gadget is very similar to making it without.
you begin by bringing milk to a boil,
cooling it to room temperature and straining it,
mixing it with a yogurt culture (in this case, 6 ounces of whole foods’ best fat free plain yogurt) and any flavoring (i used 5 tablespoons of blueberry syrup)
and letting it sit in a warm place for many many hours.
the joy of the yogurt maker, though, is not only the cute little glass jars (of course i love the idea of not having to throw away a plastic container every morning after breakfast)
but that it creates the perfect just-the-right-temperature little environment for the yogurt to rest in.
as you may remember, the last time i tried to make yogurt, i was disappointed by how runny the texture was. the first time i used the yaourtiere, the yogurt was a little thicker, but still pretty soft. the second time, however, i boiled the milk much longer than before (by accident), but the yogurt turned out even thicker and much more like commercial yogurt.
making yogurt (with a yaourtiere, that is) is not especially labor-intensive, per se, it just takes about 9 hours (although largely unattended). but for me, the benefits of a) knowing exactly what’s in it (no preservatives, extra sugars, icky additives) and b) not wasting plastic containers mean that i will probably try to fit it in to my regular weekend schedule.
and think of all the flavors i can experiment with!
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i should have definetly registered for one of these. maybe i can trick people into thinking our baby will eat nothing but yogurt when i get knocked up.
I didn’t even know that these existed. I do find it slightly funny that you use yogurt to make yogurt (the 6 oz of whole foods yogurt). I really like greek style yogurt (I eat the Trader Joe’s greek yogurt daily). What do you do differently to make it greek style?
apparently starting with greek yogurt helps make the texture thicker. also, if you are making yogurt the traditional way (without a yogurt machine) you can drain it through cheese cloth for a thicker texture.