Friday, April 20, 2012

Easy Homemade Yogurt in the Crock Pot - Flavored!

"6 Quart Set'N Forget Programmable Slow Cooker"
Make Homemade Yogurt in the Slow Cooker, And Flavor It Without Making It Runny




My three sons eat an enormous amount of yogurt, and I was literally spending over $10 per week on yogurt.  Yogurt!  And the stuff I was buying had quite a bit more sugar than I wanted, even if it was organic.  Luckily, I came across an easy crock pot recipe for yogurt that saves me a lot of money and lets me control how much sugar goes into it.

Here it is:

8 cups of milk (lowfat or whole, doesn’t matter)
½ cup of plain yogurt (after you make your first batch, you can use your homemade yogurt as starter for the next batches)
1 packet of unflavored gelatin

In the late afternoon, pour 8 cups of milk into the slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 2 ½ hours.  Then unplug it and leave it covered for 3 hours.  Once that time has passed, mix 1 packet of unflavored gelatin with ½ cup of yogurt and whisk well.  Scoop out 2 cups of the milk from the crock pot and mix the yogurt/gelatin mixture into it.  Pour it all back into the slow cooker and mix well.  Replace the cover, and wrap in a thick towel or blanket.  Go to bed and let it set for 8 hours.

In the morning…voila! Yogurt!

At this point, you can either pour the plain yogurt into containers to store it, or you can separate it into flavored individual serving containers.  I usually store some plain for recipes, and to serve as a starter for the next batch.  And some I flavor and pour into individual serving containers.

To make flavored yogurt, I use the following guidelines:

Strawberry, Raspberry, or Blueberry:
Mix 1 tbsp desired jam with 1 cup yogurt

Lemon:
Mix 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp sugar with 1 cup yogurt

Apple:
Quickly toss peeled, diced apple pieces with cinnamon in an oiled skillet for a few minutes to soften.  Mix with 1 cup yogurt and sweeten to taste.

Pineapple:
Dice fresh pineapple and toss into yogurt and sweeten to taste with sugar.

There are a myriad of other flavors you can experiment with, such as cinnamon raisin, peaches and ginger, or mango.  Enjoy!