I have found a new and exciting trick-- Homemade Yogurt. I guess it was taught in our Enrichment meeting in November when I missed, but Annette Bashford took it on and learned how to do it. I went over the other day for a taste and a lesson. I will tell you it is SOOO good and very easy! It is a great way to use your food storage. My family just loves it! I have had fun playing with different flavors. The vanilla is really good. I also like the banana with some bananas sliced in it. I really want to try a vanilla bean, just because it sounds good. When you freeze it, it is like golden spoon yogurt. So Fun!!
Here's the recipe:
20 Cups Hot Tap Water
5 Cups Powdered Milk (from cannery-- not Morning Moo's)
4 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Start (use Dannon Plain Yogurt-- or borrow someone's start)
2 tsp. Vanilla
Flavorings-- (I use oil flavorings that I got at Leavitt's Magic Mill and/or Hursts.)
6 quart jars & 1 pint jar
Place start on counter to bring to room temperature.
Put hot water in large stock pan. Put on stove and turn on heat. Add powdered milk and mix with electric hand mixer. Add sugar and whisk in. Put thermometer in pan and begin heating to 180 degrees. I stir constantly so it doesn't burn on bottom. When temperature reaches 180, turn oven off and leave it too cool. Do not touch it until it cools to 115 Degrees. It takes 1 1/2 hours to cool to temperature. Yep! Just let it sit.
When it cools to 115, add vanilla and start. Mix thoroughly with whisk. Pour into clean quart jars. When in jars, add flavorings and colorings if desired. Put lid and ring on, then place in "incubator." (My incubator is a styrofoam ice chest with a polar fleece blanket (1 3/4 yards).) Place bottles in incubator and cover with fleece, then place lid on top. Let sit for 7-9 hours. (If you make this around 8 pm at night, you can have it in the incubator by 10 pm and can wake up and put it in the fridge.
After it has processed for 7-9 hours, take out of incubator and put in fridge to chill 3-4 hours. Drain off liquid before serving. You can put it in little Glad 4 oz storage containers for individual servings. They can be placed back in the fridge or frozen. They make great little snacks for school lunch. The frozen ones defrost to just right by lunch time.
You can also add fresh fruit to the bottom of your container, then add the yogurt on top. Bottled fruit or jams are great to put in the bottom and then mix in, as well as fresh fruit. They are so yummy and easy.
The pint jar is to be used for your next start, so don't eat out of that one and make sure no one else does!
Tip: If you are using lemon flavoring, it is really strong. You only need about 3 drops. The peach, strawberry, and banana all need about 8-9 drops of flavoring. We just tried strawberry/banana with 4 drops of each, so we'll know how it is by tomorrow. I'm going to go get some other new flavors as well. (The strawberry banana is good. If mixing flavors add 3-4 drops of each flavor.)
Try it! You'll like it! The milk is fat free and it only costs 50 cents a QUART!!! How can you beat that??!! Plus, you get to use your food storage! Now we can survive off wheat bread AND yogurt! Isn't that a plus??!!
