The Kiddo has a nearly unholy love for yogurt. It is his fail safe, will-eat-anytime food even when he won’t eat anything else. I make it myself for two reasons:
1. It’s SO much cheaper. A quart of organic milk to make my own yogurt costs me $1.50. A quart of organic yogurt in the store costs me $3.59 (and the YoBaby packs are even more expensive than that).
2. MY yogurt has vitamin D in it; store bought organic does not. I absolutely could not find whole milk yogurt with vitamin D. At all. And since The Kiddo doesn’t eat much else, he needs all the fat for his growing little brain.
So, in a nutshell, here’s my method, adapted from Alton Brown’s method. It’s long but not as complicated as it looks. Tweak according to what supplies you have on hand.
Ingredients
- 1 quart whole milk
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup dry milk powder (the added protein thickens the yogurt)
- splash of vanilla, or maple syrup.
- 2 Tbsp. of yogurt from your last batch of yogurt, or of store bought yogurt; just make sure the label says it contains live active cultures
Instructions
- Stir all ingredients EXCEPT 2 TBSP OF YOGURT together (I do this in a 4 cup Pyrex glass measuring cup)
- Microwave it for three minutes at a time, stirring at the end of each 3 minutes to dissolve the milk and sugar. After two cycles, check the temp; you want it to get to 180 degrees. Add a third cycle if needed to hit 180.
- Let it sit till it cools to119 degrees (120 is the temp that kills yogurt bacteria and cultures; this is bad)
- While it cools, set up your incubation system. I put a heating pad in the bottom of my Le Creuset 6 3/4 quart oven and put four glasses (just regular drinking glasses, but big ones) on top of the heating pad. Go ahead and turn the heating pad on to medium to be warming the glasses and pan so as not to shock the milk when you pour it in
- When the milk in the Pyrex is cooled to 1119, take a spoonful of milk at a time and stir it (gently!) into your 2 Tbsp. of milk till it's thinned enough to be pourable. Then pour it all back into the Pyrex and stir well (gently, still)
- Now you wait! The longer it incubates, the tarter it will be. Since it's for The Kiddo and he likes it sweet, I only incubate for about four hours. Just gently tip one of the glasses a bit and see if it's mostly set up. If it is, great! Move it to the fridge and let it sit overnight to finish setting up. In the morning: voila! Yogurt.
Enjoy!
I can’t wait to try this. If you wanted to add flavoring, would you suggest just mixing in a spoonful of jam? (you can email me at gooch100@gmail.com)
Yep! I usually buy a giant bag of frozen mixed fruit and cook it down a bit, then puree it in my mini chopper. I tried mixing some of that in before incubation but it wasn’t great; the fruit all settled to the bottom, and over-stirring of homemade yogurt is bad. So I’d definitely add flavoring when you serve — jam or honey or maple syrup or whatever! Just go at it gently… you want to more fold it in than stir it in.
Let me know how it goes!
[...] around 90-115 degrees. This seems to be the trickiest part of the whole process and there are many options from which to choose. My oven has two low-temp settings, one for bread proofing and the other a [...]
[...] 26, 2009 by oneparticularkitchen As discussed, The Kiddo loves him some yogurt. The problem is that it’s so creamy and fabulous the he sometimes has issues keeping it on [...]
[...] 2, 2009 by oneparticularkitchen As discussed, The Kiddo loves him some yogurt. The problem is that it’s so creamy and fabulous the he sometimes has issues keeping it on [...]
Nice! I like your recipe…the soymilk stuff I made was nasty (the addition of grapefruit didn’t help matters). I’ll try your recipe next week!
Cool! Let me know how it goes!
[...] The orginal how-to is here with all the details. But a quick run-down of the process, lest you be afraid: [...]
[...] followed read her instructions here, whined to her that it sounded complicated (can’t you see why she loves to be my friend?), [...]