Spring and Fresh Homemade Yogurt

Spring is in the air and while wheat grass sprouts

and flowers bloom

I thought I'd reattempt making yogurt.

My last batch of "yogurt" was sadly nothing more than a bunch of warm milk. Fortunately, all was not lost, and I the never-to-be yogurt was transformed into some decent ricotta cheese. Left with a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction I put my plans for homegrown yogurt aside until... I found a steal on a brand new yogurt maker.

The basics of yogurt making is very simple: add some plain store-bought yogurt to some warmed milk and keep the mixture warm for a period of several hours and that's it. There are several methods of maintaining a warm environment including improvised ice coolers, heating pads (Alton Brown the nerdy host of Good Eats, suggests wrapping one of these around a cylindrical containing your milk and placing the entire lot in an insulated ice bucket) and even a thermos. My machine is essentially a domed heating pad with charming individual-serving glass jars. The benefits of making your own yogurt are like cooking your own food: it tastes great, you know what goes in it, it's cheap, and no plastic. Here's how to do it:

Fresh Homemade Yogurt

Allow a quart of milk (2% or whole) to come to room temperature or heat on the stove until just warm. Note: this method makes for a thinner consistency, other instructions may ask to heat the milk to a higher temperature then allow to cool to 100 degrees before proceeding. Add to the warm milk a small container (6-8 oz) of plain store-bought yogurt (make sure it contains "live cultures".) Stir well and pour into your culturing container.

After 4-6 hours you should have yogurt. Immediately refrigerate and serve when cool.

Since this recipe makes plain yogurt, I like to doctor it up with a drizzle of maple syrup or honey and some toasted almonds. This stuff is so good. I haven't figure out exactly why eating out of a jar is such a pleasure but I suspect it has to something to do with the weight of the glass. Who knew?