Yummiest Yogurt

Do you like plain yogurt? A year ago I would have said no. I didn't like it because it was so sharp and tart and not sweet. I only liked yogurt that was sweetened and had fruit. But then I noticed how much sugars some of the yogurts had, so I decided to try making my own to see if I liked the homemade kind any better. I think I now have the perfect recipe. It turns out so thick, creamy and smooth, with just a touch of tartness. It's so good I can eat it plain without sweetening. I enjoy every bite. Here is the recipe that I like the best.

4 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs. powdered milk
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs. Plain Yogurt

Heat the milk to 185 degrees (just about to boil). Then let the milk cool to 110 degrees. Stir in the powdered milk, and the yogurt. Then put into containers and warm in the yogurt maker for 8 hours. That's it! It's super easy.

I'm sure there are ways to do it without the yogurt makers, but I didn't trust a hot pad or a warm oven to get the temperature right. So I just use a yogurt maker. My friend gave me it for Christmas. And I love it! I make yogurt on my weekend, and have enough to last me all week long.

Here a few things I learned by trial and error:

I use 2% milk, because I don't think I should have as much fat as the whole milk has. But I'm sure whole milk would be even more delicious. I don't like to use the fat free or 1% for yogurt.

The first few times I made yogurt I didn't heat the milk to 185 degrees, because I figured the milk I used was the store bought kind that was already homogenized and pasteurized. So I didn't think I needed to do this step. I just heated the milk to 110, and then added the rest of the stuff. But my yogurts kept coming out kind of runny. So I tried it with heating the milk. For some reason, the yogurt comes out really thick when I heat the milk like the recipe says to.

All yogurts use different bacterias for the cultures. I tried a few different kinds. I tried Dannon, and it was pretty good, but a little too tart for my tastes. I also tried Stoneyfield Farms, and it was my second favorite kind. But my most favorite kind to use is the Oikos Plain yogurt. (In fact, I like this kind just to eat too,)

If you have a yogurt maker that is gathering dust, I recommend you give my recipe a try. It's so good, store bought yogurt will never be good enough again.