Making Yogurt

A few months ago, frustrated by the lack of suitable vanilla flavoured yogurt at the supermarket again, I bought an Easiyo yogurt maker.  I’d remembered seeing a post from Pip at Real Mealsabout making yogurt, so thought I’d give it a go.  It didn’t cost much to start, about $30 (I think) for the yogurt maker and the starter sachets are $5 each and make 1kg of yogurt.  Its taken a bit of trial and error but we have finally settled on two yoghurts we like.My first attempt was with the Reduced Fat Unsweetenedstarter.  I left it overnight (about 17 hours).  This produced a very tangy natural yogurt, to my liking, but not Oscar’s.  I tried to sweeten it with 2 tablespoons of rice malt syrup and mixed in some diced pear and apple pieces, but it was still too tangy for Oscar.

Making Yoghurt in the Easiyo Yogurt Maker

On the second attempt I used the Vanilla Flavour (sweetened) starter and left it for the minimum 8 hours.  This produced a sweet, very thick (stand a spoon in it) yogurt and Oscar loved it!  The thickness was a bit off putting for me, so I tried the Low Fat Vanilla Flavour (unsweetened) and added 2 tablespoons of sugar.  I left it 9 hours this time.  It wasn’t sweet enough for Oscar, not even with rice malt syrup and fruit or caramel flavour mixed with it.

Finally, I went back to the Vanilla Flavour (sweetened) starter, but this time instead of shaking the jar as per the instructions I slowly stirred the starter into the water.  The taste was just as nice, but not so thick.  This is Oscar’s yogurt.

My yogurt is made from the Reduced Fat Unsweetened starter, but I don’t leave it so long now, usually just 8 to 10 hours and its not as tangy.

Easiyo Yogurt

Apparently you can make all sorts of other things with this yogurt, such as cheese, mayonnaise and sauces, so I’ll to give a few of their recipes a go now.

And if you don’t have intolerances to flavours there is a whole range of naturally flavoured yogurt available.