Recipe for French Vanilla Yogurt: Yogurt Making 102

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

So we’ve had the yogurt maker for a few months now. Unfortunately, our toddler was unimpressed with momma’s homemade yogurt which necessitated some serious recipe tweaking on my part. The result? A tart yet sweet french vanilla yogurt.
Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

Milk (amount is determined by your yogurt maker capacity. In my case about 6 cups to make 7 servings)

1/2 cup powdered milk (this is a thickener and is the key to thicker yogurt)

1/4 cup light brown sugar

2 to 3 tbsp of vanilla (use real vanilla, no imitation stuff)

Yogurt cultures.  We use the Eurocuisine brand.

Thermometer

Instructions

1.Heat milk to 185 F.

2.Remove milk from heat and let cool until the 120 F range.  This takes between 10 and 15 minutes.

Note: As the milk cools, a skin will form. I just wind it around the thermometer and discard. Don’t panic if you see the skin–it can be removed with no ill effects on the final product.

3. Add the powdered milk, vanilla, and sugar. Stir.

4. Monitor the temperature of the mixture and add the yogurt culture when the thermometer reads 112 F.

5.Pour into yogurt maker and ‘incubate’ per the yogurt maker’s instructions.

6.Refrigerate for several hours prior to eating. This allows the yogurt to firm up and continue to thicken for a smooth creamy texture.

I still add some whole fruit jam to this yogurt as the toddler likes her yogurt pretty sweet. To my adult palate, this recipe tastes almost like cheesecake. It’s very fresh and the tart flavor notes are moderated by the sweetness of the brown sugar.

While my toddler may still be a bit dubious about my homemade yogurt (can’t win them all, I guess!), all the adults who have tried this yogurt recipe have raved about the flavor.

If you are considering making your own yogurt, you may want to read my Yogurt Making 101 post which gets into choosing yogurt makers.

Other posts you may find helpful:

Meal Planning 101

Cheap Grocery Shopping – Saving Money on Groceries

Tags: french vanilla yogurt recipe, homemade french vanilla yogurt, homemade yogurt, how to make french vanilla yogurt, making thick yogurt, powdered milk thick yogurt, thick yogurt recipe, vanilla yogurt recipe real vanilla, yogurt makers, yogurt making, yogurt recipe
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Homemade Yogurt 101: What You Need to Know About Homemade Yogurt

Friday, January 8th, 2010

My toddler only eats two food groups; yogurt and cottage cheese. That’s it. So we go through a lot of yogurt and cottage cheese. And since we do organic, well, you can imagine how expensive that gets  (I would buy ‘regular’ yogurt if it wasn’t full of so much sugar and junk– Coke has something like 25 grams of sugar. So does Yoplait. Look at the label sometime. We buy a higher protein greek yogurt which only comes in organic).

So I bought a yogurt maker and am making my own yogurt at a huge cost savings for our family. FYI if you want to buy a yogurt maker, get it online because you won’t find these things in stores. Also, they all kind of suck. A few reviewers had their yogurt makers catch on fire. So I recommend close supervision and maybe not spending top dollar.

I know some people make yogurt in coolers, in the oven with the baking light on and in slow cookers. I tested the temps for all the do-it-yourself yogurt making options and everything ran too hot or too cold so cheap yogurt making didn’t appear to be in the cards for us. (And I literally spent hours reading blogs and recipes and product reviews and running around my kitchen sticking a thermometer in all sorts of nooks and crannies. My husband thought I was nuts.)

This is the yogurt maker I bought. I like it. Except it did kind of melt when I boiled some water next to it so we actually have bought it twice. Just learn from my experience and keep it away from all heat sources.

What I liked about it was that it comes with glass jars. We are sort of eco-conscious over here and I don’t want any plastic jars if it can be helped. The first yogurt maker we ordered had jars made of plastic type 7 which is known to leach all sorts of chemicals. I returned it.

The other thing to look for in a yogurt maker is an auto shut off feature. This is helpful so that it stops by itself if you should happen to forget about it. Which I did (I’m not really rocking the yogurt making over here, can you tell?). Also, I hope the auto shut off cuts down on the fire hazard.

Aside from the fact I keep going on and on about making yogurt (who knew this topic could get so wordy?), it’s actually quick and easy to set up. Very low maintenance. Takes about 30 minutes of prep and 10 hours of ‘cooking’. All you need is milk and a starter, that’s it.

Boil the milk. Cool the milk. Add the starter. Put it in the yogurt maker and let it smolder for 10ish hours. Voila! You have smooth and creamy  yogurt and you know what is in it. We sweeten ours with honey or nutella (yum! Chocolate yogurt) or jam.

Homemade yogurt is 50% cheaper and better for you than what the grocery store is selling. So if you have people in your family who would starve without multiple servings of yogurt each day, yogurt making will save you gobs of money. Really.

Just don’t melt your yogurt maker like I did.

Tags: homemade yogurt, making yogurt, yogurt maker, yogurt makers
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