Our Best Yogurt Yet

Our friend Sylvie at Rappahannock Cook & Kitchen Gardener inspired a trip to the health food store to look for a better brand of yogurt culture. I wasn't expecting any more than what I usually see at Whole Foods. Imagine my surprise.

In fact, there were several appealing yogurts I had never seen before, including this one called "siggi's," made in New York State but billing itself as an "Icelandic style" yogurt or "skyr." Of all the yogurts in the dairy case it boasted the largest selection of active cultures: Acidophilus, Delbrueckii Bulgaricus, Delbrueckii Lactis and Thermophilus.

Don't ask me what all of it means. Microbiology was not by best subject in college. I just wanted something more than the usual.

The way I've been making yogurt for the past several months is to add some of last week's yogurt to a pot of whole, unhomogenized creamtop milk, provided by grass-fed cows and delivered to our door by South Mountain Creamery in Western Maryland. The original culture for this yogurt came from a quart of Seven Stars Farm yogurt purchased at Whole Foods. Seven Stars, a biodynamic, organic operation located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, makes a wonderful yogurt. But I was itching for something a little different.

The "skyr" has an additional depth of flavor. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there's something about the tang that hints just a wee bit at a barnyard--in a pleasant sort of way. In addition, I planned on adding whole cream to this next batch of yogurt. Because we haven't ordered any cream for some time, and because my wife hoards the half-and-half for her coffee, I've been making yogurt with milk only and the result has been thinner, with more curdles. My wife insisted the curdles were a result of my overcooking the yogurt. But I knew better. I was convinced that re-establishing the cream in my formula would return us to thick, rich yogurt.

Can I take a moment to gloat?

I mixed 3 1/4 cups creamtop milk with 1/2 cup heavy cream in a heavy sauce pan and brought it slowly up to 195 degrees over gentle heat. That takes about an hour. I then monitored the pot very closely and kept the mix around that temperature for about 15 minutes. After removing the pot from the heat, I partially filled the kitchen sink with cold water and placed the pot in it, stirring the milk until the temperature dropped to 120. At that point I mixed in 1 tablespoon of last week's yogurt and 1 tablespoon of "skyr." I then poured the mix into a warm quart canning jar and placed it along with two other canning jars filled with hot water in a small cooler. There the yogurt sat overnight, giving the bacteria plenty of time and a cozy, warm nest in which to get busy.

I showed the finished yogurt to my wife the next morning and she was convinced. It was the thickest, creamiest, tastiest yogurt we have ever made. I don't see much room for improvement, and I consider the $3 I spent on that 6-ounce container of "skyr" a valuable investment.

Do You Like Warm Yogurt?

Now that we are making our own yogurt, I get to taste it in all stages of development. Bacteria are wonderful things. At least the bacteria that inhabit our yogurt are. They create a delicious tang from plain milk.

When I was a youth living in Switzerland, many years ago, I remember my host father tasting and re-tasting a bowl of milk he had fermenting on the kitchen counter. I thought he must have an awfully strange sense of what is edible. But now I like to sample my yogurt even before it has completely fermented and thickened. After coming off the stove and having some of last week's yogurt mixed in as a culture, it goes into a Styrofoam cooler with some jars of hot water. Hours later it is still loose and warm but I love the feel of it when I take a spoonful. Have you ever tried yogurt warm this way?

I'm still refining my yogurt recipe. What seems to work best is a mix of 3 1/4 cups grass-fed whole (cream top) milk and 1/2 cup half-and-half set over gentle heat in a heavy pot. I bring the milk up to just below the boiling point, or past 200 degrees Fahrenheit when the milk is just beginning to foam. This will take about 45 minutes. I then remove the pan from the heat and place it in the sink with cold water to bring the temperature of the milk down to 120 degrees, at which point I mix in about 2 tablespoons of last week's yogurt and pour the mix into a warm quart canning jar. The canning jar goes into a cooler with 2 jars of hot water and sits overnight.

Cooking the milk at a high temperature concentrates the protein and results in a thicker yogurt. The amount of bacteria you put in the milk has no effect on thickness. The yogurt is actually set after a few hours. But I like to give the bacteria more time to create that delicious tang.

If It's Wednesday, It Must Be Yogurt

Tuesday is delivery day for dairy from South Mountain Creamery. My new routine is to open a bottle of whole, cream-top milk (meaning pasteurized but not homogenized) and make a batch of yogurt for the week.

I've done this so many times now that I can almost make yogurt in my sleep. I've found that the secret to creamy, thick yogurt is to add some half-and-half and cook the milk at a fairly high temperature before putting it aside to ferment.

Contrary to what you might think, it's not the number of microbes in the yogurt that makes it thick, but the protein content of the milk. Cooking the milk concentrates the proteins. Many commercial makers add powdered milk to increase the protein content and thicken the yogurt. We'd rather not have industrially altered cholesterol in our yogurt and I don't recommend it for anyone else either. Just be patient, spend a few minutes at the stove and your yogurt will come out luxuriously thick.

My recipe: 3 1/4 cups whole, cream-top milk plus 1/2 cup half-and-half, preferably from grass-fed cows in your local area. Pour the milk mixture into a heavy saucepan and set over fairly low heat, stirring frequently so that the milk doesn't scorch. (If you use gas heat, you might try using a heat diffuser between the flame and the bottom of your pan.) Gently bring the temperature of the milk up to 200 degrees, using an instant-read thermometer to monitor the temperature. Don't be too anxious: this could take 45 minutes or more, but better to not burn the milk or let it boil, in which case it could separate.

Hold the milk at 200 degrees for five minutes, removing the pan from the heat if it gets too hot. Remove the pan from the heat to rest for a minute. Meanwhile, partially fill your kitchen sink with cold water. Place the saucepan in the sink until the temperature of the milk falls back to 120 degrees. Remove the pan.

Mix some of the milk in a small bowl with 2 tablespoons yogurt from a previous batch or with commercial yogurt containing active cultures. Stir this into the saucepan, then pour the milk into a warm quart canning jar. Place the jar in a small cooler with two or three other quart canning jars filled with hot water. Cover and let sit overnight.

By morning, your yogurt will be completely done. Have a bowl with a drizzle of your favorite honey, or perhaps some orange sections and shaved dark chocolate. We will use it all week to make fresh fruit smoothies.

Yogurt Success

As long as we're getting deliveries of fresh, whole milk and cream, I thought we should start making our own yogurt on a regular basis.

On my first attempt, I made the mistake of following instructions from a dairy cookbook, heating our unhomogenized whole milk to just 115 degrees (Fahrenheit) before inoculating is with some store-bought yogurt. I left it to incubate overnight in a cooler packed with jars of hot water. What I got was a runny, fermented sort of yogurt wanna-be. Why hadn't it firmed up?

Then I recalled our yogurt lessons from "food appreciation" classes when we had cooked the milk at 185 degrees. I went back and read the pertinent section in Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" and kicked myself for failing to remember that it isn't the bacteria that make the yogurt thick, it's the temperature.

Bacteria ferment the milk by noshing on lactose and making acid. That gives yogurt it's pleasant tang. The thickness occurs when the proteins in the milk are heated to a fairly high temperature. Heat concentrates the proteins and forces them to gather in thick chains. Commercial yogurt makers often add powdered milk and gelatin to achieve the thickness consumers are used to.

For this most recent batch, I mixed 3 1/2 cups whole, unhomogenized milk with 1/2 cup heavy cream and heated it slowly in a heavy saucepan to 195 degrees. I maintained that temperature for 10 minutes (according to McGee's instructions) before moving the pan to a cold water bath and lowering the temperature to 115 degrees, at which point I mixed in 3 tablespoons of our favorite commercial yogurt from Seven Stars Farm. I poured the mix into a warm quart jar and placed the jar in a cooler with a heavy pot full of hot water.

I placed an instant-read thermometer in the cooler, aiming to maintain a temperature of about 115 degrees. Turned out I didn't need to do anything further. The yogurt had firmed up after just a few hours, but I left it in the cooler overnight. The next morning it was thick and delicious. I couldn't wait to slice up a peach and smoother it in our fresh, whole-milk (with some cream) yogurt.

Without a doubt, this is the best yogurt I have ever tasted.

Note: take care not to boil or burn your milk. Use a very heavy saucepan and don't try to rush the milk to 195 degrees. Be gentle with the heat and stir frequently with a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula to prevent the milk at the bottom of the pan from scalding.

Lunch

Cantaloupe with yogurt and honey.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

We love these no-cook summer meals. The melon comes from the local Harris Teeter's and has been chilling in the fridge, getting riper and nibbled on the last couple of days.

The yogurt is plain and whole, with all the fat, baby. Among the many different brands at Whole Foods, the one I currently like best is from Seven Stars Farm in Phoenixville, PA. It's got all the live cultures in there, but none of the powdered milks and gelatins and stabilizers you find in too many other brands.

Just drizzle a little honey on top. The garnish, by the way, is a sprig of anise hyssop, now in bloom. After you take the picture, sprinkle some of those little flower buds into the yogurt. They're full of sweet anise flavor.

Kids Make Granola (to go with their homemade yogurt)

Kids have been conditioned to expect things sweet. And smooth. And perfectly homogenized.

This is a cultural phenomenon especially prevelant here in the United States where families simply do not make much food from scratch at home any more. Whole ingredients have become a rarity in favor of processed foods out of boxes.

Consequently I had a tough sell this week trying to entice the kids in my "food appreciation" classes with a delicious, nutritious helping of the yogurt they made last week and a topping of homemade granola. Their first issue was the yogurt that came out of the quart jars I'd stashed in the refrigerator since we first incubated it a week ago. They couldn't get over the globbiness of it, and the bit of whey running off to the side as I scooped the yogurt into a bowl. I had each of them take a small sample with a spoon. Never have so many young faces been screwed up into scowls as they tentatively tasted and recorded the mild sourness.

We then sampled some agave syrup. My wife had suggested it as a stand-in for honey, which brings a distinctively assertive sweetness to things. The agave is a cactus-like plant used in Mexico for making tequila. It also makes a fine sweetener--somewhere between honey and a light maple syrup. The kids liked it, and voted to put some of it in the yogurt, which suddenly became palatable for them as it turned sweeter and was stirred into a silken smoothness.

As for the granola, they had great fun measuring out the ingredients and taking turns stirring everything together. This is a basic granola from whole grains and seeds--no nuts--seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla and moderately sweetened with agave syrup. I thought the kids would love it. Boy was I wrong. Their reactions were all over the map. Some indicated they had eaten granola out of a box at home. Others were familiar with granola bars. Many of the kids voted to skip the granola entirely and just eat the yogurt. Then there were a couple who passed on the yogurt and asked for granola by itself.

Go figure.

As for me, a bowl of fresh, plain yogurt mixed with warm granola out of the oven proved irresistible. So make both, and if the kids refuse, eat it yourself.

For the granola:

1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cups sesame seeds (or ground flax seeds)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup agave syrup (or honey)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, etc.)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Toast coconut on a baking sheet in the oven until lightly browned. Pour into a mixing bowl. Add remaining dry ingredients, oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds (or flax), salt, cinnamon, nutmeg. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

Pour agave syrup (or honey), water, canola oil and vanilla into a measuring cup. Use a small whisk to mix well. Pour into dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Use a spatula to spread the mix onto the baking sheet. Place in the oven and bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until the mix has dried, browned and become very aromatic, about 45 minutes total. Set on wire racks to cool. Pour mix into a clean mixing bowl and toss in dried fruits.

When the granola has cooled, it is ready to eat (or maybe you like yours warm?) Serve as you like, with fresh fruit and yogurt, or maybe a little milk. The rest can be stored in sealable bags or jars. Warning: you will be tempted to snack on this shamelessly before you can ever put it away.

Note: We did not include nuts in this recipe because of possible allergies. But you certainly may put nuts in your granola if you like.

Kids Make Yogurt, Then Strawberry Smoothies

Here's the dirty little secret about yogurt: If people knew how easy it was to make it, there wouldn't be nearly such a need for it in the dairy case.

Making yogurt is as simple as heating milk on the stove for a few minutes then inoculating it with a live yogurt culture. It's an overnight fermentation process similar to the one we use to make our sauerkraut. The key ingredient is the bacteria that go to work on the sugars (lactose) in the milk, lowering the pH to a more acid environment, which creates a distinctively sour flavor and also gives yogurt its keeping quality.

I consider yogurt making one of the many kitchen miracles that expose the kids in my "food appreciation" classes to the science of cooking--in this case some of the biological aspects of cooking. Having discovered the beneficial effects that microbes can have on food, humans have been making and eating yogurt for millenia.

According to food authority Harold McGee, the word "yogurt" comes from the Turkish root for "thick." Heating the milk prior to fermentation changes the structure of milk proteins, causing them to link together. All of this remained a mere curiosity to most Westerners until the 20th Century, when the Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Ilya Methnikov linked yogurt consumption to the health and longevity of certain groups in Bulgaria, Russia, France and the United States.

Now yogurt has an immediate association with healthful eating, although fat, saturated fat and cholesterol are still important considerations, as with any dairy product. Kids usually are a bit put off by the sourness of plain yogurt, but immediately warm to the idea of adding fruit to create a smoothie. Smoothies are a great way to package body-building proteins with the nutritional benefits of fresh fruit.

To make a batch of fresh yogurt at home, start with a quart of the best whole milk you can find. In a pot over moderate heat, bring the milk to 195 degrees (17 degrees below the boiling point). Use an instant-read thermometer or a candy thermometer to monitor the milk's temperature and adjust the burner as needed.

Lower the heat and continue cooking for ten minutes at 195 degrees, then remove the pot from the heat and place it in a large bowl partially filled with cold water. Again using a thermometer, bring the temperature of the milk down to 110 degrees. Now stir in 1 tablespoon plain yogurt containing active cultures. (Read the label on the yogurt container. It will say whether it contains live cultures.) Pour the milk into a warm quart jar and place the jar in a cooler with several jars or a small bucket of hot water. Close the lid on the cooler and allow the yogurt to ferment overnight, or up to 18 hours.

The reason for lowering the temperature of the milk after cooking is to create an environment in which the bacteria can thrive and multiply. The warm cooler also accelerates the fermentation process. The miracle result is a quart jar full of thick, luscious yogurt you can begin to enjoy immediately.

It seems that every family has its own way of making smoothies. Our recipe is as follows: In a blender jar, place 1 peeled banana, 2 heaping cups of cleaned and stemmed strawberries (about 1 pound), 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1/2 cup orange juice and 1 1/2 tablespoons honey. Blend until thoroughly mixed. Then add about 1 cup ice cubes, cover and blend until completely smooth.

Even kids who don't normally eat yogurt love smoothies made with this distinctive dairy product.

Note: Children allergic to milk should not eat yogurt. However, people who are lactose intolerant may be able to enjoy yogurt, since the lactose in the milk has been consumed during the fermentation process.