i first attempted making my own yogurt about 2 years ago, when i was completely dairy free.  though we have now reintroduced some dairy into our home, we have still held onto this recipe as one of our weekly favorites.  at first, i was pretty intimidated at the thought of making yogurt, but honestly it is really easy and takes very few ingredients. we ferment ours typically about 18 hours, which yields a creamy, slightly sweet, slightly tart final product.  if you are used to the sweet store bought yogurts, the tartness of homemade yogurt can be a slight adjustment, but it is so good!

the basic ingredients are coconut milk, honey, vanilla, a probiotic starter and some thickener (i typically use agar-agar).

 thoughts on coconut milk:

we typically use native forest organic canned coconut milk.  mainly because the cans are bpa free.  the downside is that there is guar gum as a stabilizer and i am not a huge fan of it.  this week, i am making my own coconut milk from dried organic coconut flakes and i am going to try that in our next batch of yogurt. i will let you know how that turns out!

thoughts on thickener:

we have found that agar-agar is our favorite thickener for the yogurt.  i have tried tapioca starch, arrowroot &  guar gum and all of them work fine also.  i am planning on trying to use plain gelatin sometime, but haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.

thoughts on yogurt makers:

i have a little yogurt maker by waring, i got it for about $25 at tuesday morning (a random discount store) we have here.  the one thing i did right away was toss all the plastic containers that came with it (i hate bpa) and instead it fits 7 half-pint mason jars perfectly.  the nice thing about using a yogurt maker is that it keeps the temperature perfectly consistent at 105 degrees and i can just set the timer and forget about it.  a lot of people use their crock-pot, or oven with light on, or excalibur dehydrator, so really it is just preference. a yogurt maker is actually not necessary to culture yogurt.

 other hints:

• make sure you sterilize jars and utensils before beginning. this is important! (i will show in another post, how to know if your yogurt is bad)
• a good yogurt starter probiotic is gi-prostart , it is dairy free and works well with nut and coconut milks
• a candy thermometer is perfect for making sure you are at the right temperatures (to high of heat will kill your probiotic culture)

shared on: monday mania, slightly indulgent tuesdays, fat tuesday, allergy-free wednesdays & pennywise platter