Homemade Yogurt Recipe

One of my favourite things to make these days comes from a cookbook inherited from the previous owner when we bought the boat. The book is called “Dock Parties and Potluck Dinners” writen by Barbara Brewer Campbell, and when all else fails and I can't think of a single thing to make for a potluck I grab this book. Anyway back to the yogurt recipe that comes from that book. This recipe comes from the Galley of Blue Chablis, with comments by myself.

Such a simple recipe, and it makes great greek yogurt. Or at least a good copy of it.

You will need:

Plain yogurt starter, Only 1 Tbsp (I bought a plain greek yogurt at the supermarket, and kept it in the fridge in case my yogurt didn't turn out. Finally just ate it,)

1 Cup of powdered Milk, (I tried the Carnation, but switched to the Nido brand that they sell here in Mexico, It make much thicker yogurt)

1 Cup of cold water

1 Cup of boiling water

Thermometer (I have never used, but the recipe recommends this.

Thermos bottle. A good wide mouth stainless steel thermos is the best.

In a very clean bowl, combine powdered milk and cold water, stirring until it is mixed well. Add boiling water to cold milk mixture. Measure temperature. Must be between 105 to 115 or about the same as if you were mixing baby formula,( test on your wrist.) Then just add a tbsp of yogurt, stir and voila, that's all there is to it.

Now just let it sit in a convenient spot for 8 to 10 hours, usually somewhere that it is not going to get rocked around too badly, probably somewhere on or near midship. Now the recipe says to dump the whole thermos contents into a clean container, we don't do that we just use it out of the thermos, so at this stage I just put the thermos in the fridge and use it as needed.

We leave about 1 Tbsp in the bottom of the thermos and start again and every few days we wash out the thermos keeping a tbsp of yogurt for the new starter. Works like a charm and is the best yogurt. Wish it hadn't taken me so long to find this recipe because makes great yogurt, and I don't have to run around to stores looking for yogurt that doesn't have a lot of sugary fruit in it. I can add my own strawberries or what have you.

Pitfalls: Using more than 1 Tbsp of starter will sometimes give a stringy texture to the yogurt. We had that problem with the Carnation mild powder, but so far not with the Nido. Also too hot the mixture when adding the starter will kill the lactobacillus culture resulting in no yogurt. (haven't had that problem). And If the milk mixture is too cool, the starter just won't grow. Also make sure that when you take any out of the container, if you want to reuse the thermos, always use a clean spoon, just like you would with mayonnaise so you don't contaminate the yogurt.