Real Yogurt
It is easy to make your own
When did yogurt become a dessert?
There are so many variations of yogurt in the store that it is hard to call them yogurt. It isn’t just blueberries, or strawberries, or boysenberry. Today’s store-bought yogurt has chocolate, cream cheese, graham crackers, or worse. The list of preservatives and artificial ingredients is a long as my arm.
Now, I know the preservatives keep the product from spoiling quickly. That means less waste of food. Real yogurt doesn’t hold up for months in the refrigerator. I just don’t want all that in my yogurt. Plus, it is so easy to make your own. All you need to make yogurt is milk and yogurt culture.
I admit, I buy yogurt culture. You can make yogurt without it, but I haven’t mastered that just yet. I make the very basic yogurt, add my own honey, or fruit. I eat it on cereal, especially granola cereal. YUM!
I will forewarn you. The yogurt is tart. It will cause you to suck your eyeballs back in your head. But, it is real yogurt. Nothing artificial in it, and fresh.
You do not need special equipment. You need something to heat four cups of milk in, a food thermometer, a container to let it work, and a warm place to incubate it. I have a four-cup Pyrex measuring cup I got from a thrift shop. When it is time to incubate I use glass bouillon jars.
In the video below I show you how easy it is to make your own yogurt, avoiding all the additives, preservatives, and sugars which make commercial yogurts unhealthy.
Using the oven: I have a vintage oven which uses a standing pilot light. This means the pilot light is always on, there is no igniter. My oven, therefore, stays warm enough to incubate the yogurt. I do mention this toward the end of the video.
