Success! On our second attempt we’ve made a good litre batch of nice thick Greek-style yoghurt overnight. It was much quicker than our first attempt, and it tastes great.
This time around we used the recipe left by Royston as a comment on our original post about making yoghurt, and it worked a treat.
We took a litre of full-fat milk and added three rounded tablespoons of dried milk. Mixing it well together, we brought it to the boil and then took it off the heat and let it cool. This cooling – until you can keep your finger in it for 10 seconds without scalding yourself – took around 50 minutes in our pan, although Royston reckons on 30 minutes in his cookware, so clearly it’s dependent on your pans. When it had reached the right temperature we stirred in a small carton of organic live yoghurt.
I know this sounds like cheating, but you have to get your bacterial culture from somewhere to start you off, and once you’ve made a successful batch you can use that as the basis for your next load. People keep them going for months this way, so for the price of some milk and a 46p pot of commercial yoghurt to get us started we should – in theory – have a base that will now last us for months.
After stirring in the culture, we decanted the mixture into a couple of flasks and put them by the radiator over night, with the cup parts of each one screwed on the top (but not the airtight cap). Royston recommends putting them in a warm airing cupboard, but we don’t have any heat in our airing cupboard as we have a combi boiler.
The next morning – this morning – we unscrewed the cups to see whether it had worked, and it had. A litre of freshly-made yoghurt, ready to be refrigerated in an airtight jar (see the picture above).
We plan on offering it as a dessert option to our boxing day guests, along with a choice of whizzed up fruits for flavour.
What fruits should we choose? Leave your recommendations in the comments below.
Homemade yoghurt
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Well done on the successful yoghurt … I started making my own because I was going through a lot making my own Yoghurt Soda Bread. Here’s the recipe I copied out of the book, if you’re interested. (It’ll go well with the yoghurt cheese … )
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* * Yoghurt Soda Bread
450g/ 1 lb wholewheat plain flour
2 tsp potassium (or sodium) bicarbonate
300ml / ½ pint natural yoghurt
150ml/ ¼ pint warm filtered water
This will make two small loaves or one large one. If you want to make a batch for the freezer, a 1.5kg/3½ lb bag of flour and a 1 litre/ l ¾ pint tub of yoghurt (with 6 tsp bicarbonate and ½ litre/ ¾ pint warm water) makes six small loaves. Preheat the oven to 400′F/200′C/Gas Mark 6. Sift the flour and mix in the raising agent, then stir in the yoghurt and warm water. Mix together well then coat the mixture with more flour and liberally flour your working surface. No kneading is necessary. If making small loaves, divide into two and make into fairly flat, oval shapes. Cut a cross on the top. Place on a floured tray and bake for 30 minutes, then turn oven down to 350′F/180′C/Gas Mark 4 for another 20 minutes. To test if it’s ready, tap the bottom of the loaf and it should sound hollow. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Six loaves in the oven might require a little more baking time.
* * Seedy Yoghurt Soda Bread
Make the mixture as for Plain Yoghurt Soda Bread and throw in a handful of sunflower seeds and a handful of pumpkin seeds. This makes it rather like a granary loaf.
* * Oaty Yoghurt Soda Bread
Make the mixture as for Plain Yoghurt Soda Bread except that you take out 2 tablespoons of flour from the original weight and replace it with coarse oatmeal. Instead of coating the dough with flour, coat it with more oatmeal. Top with poppy seeds and you’ll be amazed at how professional it looks!
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I too make ‘perpetual’ yoghurt but I use EasiYo kit. I start with one of those small pots of Actimel (my wife has the rest) and just mix it with blue-top milk and some spoonfuls of Sainsbury’s dried skimmed milk (I read that this dissolves well). I have 2 large and 2 small (lunch-pack) EasiYo tubs and manage to keep the yoghurt culture on the go for ages. The advantage of this method is that it is quick and easy to get the yoghurt started. It has only failed if the yoghurt is left too long in the making or too long in the storage. The overlong-stored yoghurt may be OK to use as a culture, but I have a continual supply of Actimel. NB The first batch made with Actimel has the sweet taste of Actimel but the rest tastes like plain, unsweetened yoghurt.
For Greek yoghurt, the yoghurt should really be strained to drain off the excess liquid. I find with the EasiYo tubs that when some of the yoghurt has been spooned out, the liquid drains into the well. This can be decanted or mixed back in with the solid yoghurt.
The EasiYo kits look great – I was looking at them in a shop yesterday, but I think I’ll stick to my method of just putting it all in a flask with a loosely-fitting cap for the night. It’s easy and, as I already have all the kit I need, costs no more than a couple of pints of milk.
Like you, Mark, I’ve found that the easiest way to spoil your yoghurt is to either leave it stewing for too long before you get it into the fridge, or don’t refresh it soon enough. I think that may be because the colony gets too large to support itself on the available food left in the jar, and so dies, a bit like when making sourdough bread.
“What fruits should we choose?”
I have yoghurt with crab apple jelly (must be a’ soft’, mixable jelly) or other fruit from the garden – rhubarb (yeah, I know it’s a veg!), strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and blueberries – boiled with sugar and a bit of water so that they are something between a compote and a jam.
Of these: rhubarb is always sour, so not so good; strawberries are tasty but lumpy, even when cut into small bits; blackcurrants are great as long as they have been well boiled to soften the multitude of tiny seeds; raspberries are the best by a long chalk – strong, full, sharp, rich flavour; and blueberries are bland on their own but better with the addition of a sharper fruit with an edge (blackcurrant or raspberry), but then why bother with the blueberries in the first place?!
For a Boxing Day meal (as was), I would take suitable fruit from the freezer – so blackcurrants, raspberries – or blueberries. I wouldn’t know about strawberries as thawed frozen strawberries have a soggy texture, which may be good for this purpose, but also seem to have an altered flavour which I, personally, don’t like as it reminds me of tinned food.
Cherries may be another option from the freezer. I have never frozen them as all cherries I have foraged have been used up fresh or compoted. Compotes will freeze of course but that means planning ahead.
I don’t do fancy quince, kiwi and orange rind type fruits for yoghurt!
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