Remember my sugar-free yogurt snack the other day?
It inspired me to try to make my own, and let me tell you, it turned out pretty awesome.
You may be asking yourself, why on earth would I want to make my own yogurt? I understand why you’re wondering. After all, you can buy yogurt fairly inexpensively at the grocery store, right? But consider this:
- If we did the math I still think homemade yogurt would be cheaper than buying.
- Making homemade yogurt is a pretty natural process, and does not contain a lot of ingredients that storebought yogurts may contain, like additives, colouring or gelatin … which may be of interest to vegetarians and vegans because unless something in the food industry has changed, gelatin is still made the old-fashioned way, out of horse hooves. Other ingredients may include corn starch for thickener, sugar, and other artificial sweeteners like aspartame.
- You can flavour homemade yogurt yourself and control the sweetness. Personally I find commercially fruit yogurts much too sweet for my liking. Like with my oatmeal, I prefer it plain and to add my own toppings. I thought my batch might end up tasting tart, like some commercial brands, but it wasn’t.
I made my yogurt -without a yogurt maker – exactly as written here. I even got out the candy thermometer so I could get the temperature right. It totally worked! I put my batch of yogurt in a very slightly warmed oven (with the light on) for about 8 hours before I put it in the fridge. The consistency was very good, although a tiny bit less solid than I would have liked it to be. I read somewhere that it’s better to throw a towel over it instead of using a dish with a lid (like I did). At this point I could throw it into a fine sieve and strain out some of the liquids, but I’m not sure if it bugs me enough to bother with this.
Some ways to use yogurt:
- Strain overnight through cheese cloth and use for a base for a dip or for tzatziki. It’s MUCH better than a sour-cream base. Here’s a great recipe from Canadian Living, which is pretty close to mine. (I grate my cucumber instead of chopping it.)
- Have it for breakfast. I had some this morning with strawberries (formerly frozen) and a liberal sprinkle of All-Bran Buds. (Kellogg should pay me for my slavish devotion to this stuff! But sadly, I need to inform you that the SECOND ingredient is sugar/glucose-fructose. KELLOGG, YOU MUST FIX THIS.) It’s also good with fresh blueberries and a sprinkle of slivered almonds. My mother used to make yogurt and serve it with a spoonful of jam in it. (Just an idea!)
- Use yogurt as a base for fruit smoothies. I bet it’d be really good whirled up in a blender with a few hunks of frozen banana.
Any other ideas?
What I don’t know is if this is better than storebought in terms of the number of active bacteria. I know this is important for some people. Regardless, I like it just the same.
