Homemade yogurt revisited.

[hippywife]

A while back there was a discussion here about making yogurt and I posted a recipe I had found. It involved letting the yogurt culture in a large bowl in a warm place for 10-12 hours. I also had mentioned that it wasn't as thick as store bought yogurt. I tried everything I could to get it thicker with only a little success. Finally, a friend told me the method she uses. It works like a charm and makes yogurt in half the time I was taking to make it. Best of all, it's nice and creamy and thick!

Some of you already know this method but, if everyone will indulge me, I'll post my experience with it, and homemade yogurt in general, for anyone else who is sick of throwing out all of those little plastic containers (our recycling facility only takes plastics 1 and 2! Aaargh!.)

Ingredients:
1 half gallon of whole milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 6 oz. cup of plain, unsweetened, full fat yogurt as a starter

Equipment:
6 mason jars
1 cooler
1 heating pad
1 bath towel
3 dish towels

Pour a couple of quarts of hot tap water into the cooler and close while you prepare the yogurt.

Bring milk to a boil, stirring constantly, and then stir in the whipping cream. Allow to sit in a glass or stoneware bowl until it cools to 100 degrees. Skim the skin off. Place the yogurt in a small-medium bowl and stir until smooth. Ladle some of the hot milk into the starter and stir well to temper. Pour the starter back into the large bowl of hot milk and stir. Ladle into mason jars and seal. (You can sterilize the jars if you want, but I don't because it's eventually gonna go in the fridge and we eat this in a week's time anyway. Just make sure the jars are nice and clean. I leave about an inch or so headroom in the jar.)

Pour the hot water out of the now nicely warmed cooler and dry it a little with the bath towel. Fold the bath towel in the bottom of the cooler. Set the heating pad on top of the bath towel and turn it on high. Place a dish towel over the heating pad. Set the full jars on top of it and cover with a couple more dish towels. Allow to culture for 5-6 hours--undisturbed--do not move it. I then set the jars on the counter for a few minutes so they will cool down a little before refrigerating.

You can halve this recipe if you want, you can even use non-fat yogurt but it won't be as creamy and it seems that some studies show that eating a full fat variety is good for you. You can cut fat elsewhere if that's your thing.

When we eat it, we stir in either fruit or preserves. The favorite so far has been to make whole cranberry sauce out of a bag of fresh cranberries just like for T-Day. It's really delicious! We then stir in our favorite cereal flakes and milled flax seed (the whole ones supply fibre but no omega 3's.) Voila! A tasty and healthy breakfast! We also use it as sour cream, in baking and homemade frozen yogurt. If you really like yogurt, you can probably go through an entire batch in a week or even two. It does keep that long. It's gotten to be such a habit and ritual, I can practically do it in my sleep, it's that easy!

[sazemisery]

1. Yummy!

I'll try this soon. A tip for the unaware: If your milk is ultra-pasteurized it will not set and be thick and creamy. Check the container carefully.