| First, buy your favorite yogurt. Make sure it's plain, and has
"living cultures". Up here in NH, Columbo, Stonybrook Farm, and
a few others qualify. Eat or otherwise use all but one tablespoonfull.
Measure 1 quart of milk (regular, low fat, 1%, or reconstituted
nonfat dry milk). Bring just to a boil, then let cool until it
is about 100 degrees F (if you were lucky, with the yogurt maker
you also got the matching spoon, which measures 1 T, and has an
embedded thermometer with no gradations except for a range marked
"Add starter"). I use the spoon, and as a result I don't know what
the exact range is... I think 95-105 is about right, but I may be
a little high...
When you hit the right temperature (see above), add the 1 T of starter
yogurt, and mix well. Fill the cups, plug in the maker, cover it,
and go away. At least 10 hours later (and as long as 30... perhaps
even longer), come back, take the cups out, and refrigerate the
contents.. you can leave it in the the cups or transfer to another
container as you wish. You now have yogurt.
NOTES
1. Different brands of starters yield different consistencies and
degrees of sharpness. Use one you like, and you'll get a rsult
you like.
2. The product of your efforts is itself a valid starter, although
I've found that it seems to weaken with each generation, and the
most I've ever been successful with is 4 generations... eventually,
it won't form the curd.
3. Culturing time affects both consistency and sharpness. The longer
it sits, the firmer it gets, and the sharper it seems to get (this
is not so pronounced in my experience... you may not notice this).
4. Once you master basic yogurt, you can work on flavors... vanilla
extract and sugar, fruits, etc.. I don't do any of these, so you're
on your own.
Steve
|
| Well, thanks to you all I have made 4 delicious batches so far.
I've found that colombo's non-fat yogurt makes a very creamy
almost pourable yogurt, very good for fruit salads and other
sweet toppings, and Dannon regular plain yogurt makes a
tarter more "normal" textured yogurt. I've tried flavoring
my yogurt with extracts before they're processed, and that works
fine - I've used vanilla, almond, and maple extract. I've also
added nutrasweet to the pre-processed milk, right before it's
poured into the containers, and found that 6-7 packs of Equal
per 1 qt batch is about right. Using nonfat dried milk, and
adding the extra 1/3 cup of powder to every quart, I figure that
each container is about 85 calories.
--Louise
|
| The containers are 3/4 of a cup (6 oz). I flavor them with extracts
and use nutrasweet, so the calories are all from the skim milk. Each
container is one milk exchange. The containers are just the right
size to put in my lunch-bag, and this is solving my problem of not
getting enough milk in a day. I use about 6-7 packs of nutrasweet
per batch, and that seems to be right for my taste - you may wish
to use more or less.
--Louise
|
| I tried yogurt this weekend, and it worked great, but now I would like to
make fruit-flavored yogurt. How do I do this? I tried adding fruit
with the milk before setting and it didn't work - the yogurt sort of
curdled and seperated. (Tasted okay but the texture was funny.)
Also, any interesting recipes? The reason I am doing this is because I
am bored of the fruit-flavored non-fat yogurts in the store. I was
thinking of making apple-spice, apricot, mocha, cinammon or pineapple
yogurt.
Diana
|
| Add your fruits after the yogurt is made. I add mine just before eating.
If you want plain yogurt with chunks of fruit, just add diced fruit. Otherwise,
you can puree some fruit, add small chunks to that, and mix in. This will
give you the strawberry-red, blueberry-purple colors that store bought
varieties have.
If the fruit is on the hard side, like apples, cook it a bit. You can add
spices before cooking to give you that apple pie flavor, too. If the fruit is
too juicy, puree some and cook it till it thickens a bit. This works great
with peaches. You can always add bits of raw fruit for texture after cooking.
Also, fruit concentrates can be used, like for OJ. Just add a teaspoon to a
cup for orange yogurt.
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