I've tried my hand once before at making yogurt, and what I created was a petri dish of bacteria. But that was in Los Angeles. I swear there is something so wrong with the air there that yeast won't behave properly. The entire time I lived there, I was unable to make decent bread, yogurt, and kombucha. Thank goodness I'm not living in the worst polluted American city any longer.
I made the yogurt with a quarter cup of Saint Benoit's, the most amazing French yogurt I've ever tasted. The milk was from Straus Dairies, though next time I think I'll downgrade to something less expensive. The result was a mild, smooth yogurt with a consistency akin to really good dessert tofu (you dim sum lovers will know what I mean). I cooked some sliced lemons with a little sugar and used it for the topping.
Basic yogurt drill:
- heat up a quart of milk to 180 degrees. Do not let it boil over! This step kills any bacteria in the milk.
- cool the milk down to about 110 degrees. Speed up the process by putting the pot in a container of iced water and/or stirring constantly. This step brings the milk down to a temperature tolerated by microorganisms.
- add a quarter cup of yogurt that contains live cultures. This introduces yeast and healthy bacterias to the yogurt.
- let sit in a warm spot (above the fridge, in an oven with the pilot on), covered loosely. The yeast will start to eat the sugars in the milk and reproduce.
- After anywhere from four to eight hours, you will have yogurt! The longer you leave the yogurt, the more firm and sour it will become. So you decide how you like it!
4 comments:
You can join the frozen yogurt craze. What about Peiberry? Do you think Pinkberry is gonna sue you on that? But worry not, T, S and me will represent you. You've got a legal dream team! Anyhoo.
On second point, stop putting LA down. Now I know how the Chinese people feel when other people always put down China. LA is polluted, congested, blahblahblah, but it's our home! We heart LA!
Hey, it's got its good points, but there is definitely something severely wrong with the air. Just like SF has its good points, but there are homeless people on every corner.
S is banned from the dream team. She doesn't even like dairy products. Plus, I refuse to put my name on anything followed by "berry."
Haha, so you don't approve of Dr. Kimberry -- be happy your folks weren't as berry mad as Dr Kim's were.
Saying that LA or China has bad air isn't a put down, it's a fact! Who doesn't think dirty air is a bad thing?
Saying that the whole L.A.-started frozen yogurt craze is lame, now THAT's a put down. Thanks for making inferior forms of real frozen desserts like ice cream and sorbet more widely available, city. Why do Los Angelenos have to start totally useless trends all the time? That's what I want to know.
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