Making yogurt at home

                    

Home made yogurt

Chonette’s introduction

Back ground history and information

Yogurt with blueberries
dark chocolate shavings and
toasted flaked almonds

I have now been making yogurt for a number of years and have compared various information sites, although I am not much good at science I think, I am able to understand a bit more on the process of yogurt making now than I did in the early years.

The first time I went to Brazil back in 2004 there they made yogurt every other day at the Permaculture institute, they got the milk fresh from the farmer next door, it was always perfect and I thought it was the most simple thing to do so on my return to the UK I tried following the instructions from Brazil, however nothing happened and was unable to make yogurt so for a while I gave up on the idea.

Then some years ago I had a sort of argument with the council in Chippenham about recycling plastics, plastic have a coded number and they only recycled No. 1, 2, and 3, but all yogurt pots and margarines are No. 5 so after several emails and some phone calls in which they gave me all the reasons why they only recycle those types one of the ladies simply said “you could always make your own yogurt” so I thought to myself ok let’s investigate and stop buying yogurt. (all plastics are now collected for recycling)

My research told me that some Indian people living away from their native country had the same problems I had getting the yogurt as thick as at home so I followed some of the recommendations and my yogurt worked out well.

As time went by and I continued being interested in the yogurt making I came across better information so now I am putting together all the info I got over the years I make yogurt every week or 10 days and always works out fine.

I have made a kit to make 1.5 litres of yogurt I hope you enjoy making and eating the yogurt as much as I do.

Greek style yogurt – Recently I discovered that the reason Greek yogurt is so thick is because it has been strained, somewhere I read they can strain it up to three times.

To strain the yogurt all you have to do is using a colander line it with a cheese cloth or muslin cloth, place the colander on top of a dish to collect the liquid and leave it in the fridge for a few hours or until you think it is thick enough for your taste.

I have done it now  on many occasions and works out perfect for making cheese cakes instead of buying Philadelphia cream cheese.

Ingredients for the glass jar kit

I got these jars very cheaply in Wilko and you can find them in some supermarkets, also Charity shops are worth checking.
1.5 litres of milk – I use whole milk but you can use any milk you like   

Live bio-yogurt a small amount maybe 3 table spoons.—this can be the Yeo Valley natural organic yogurt or the Greek Total yogurt, and once you have done it once you use a bit of the previous batch each time so you only have to buy a new one when you forget and eat it all.

Do not use any flavoured yogurt only natural bio live, it always says on the pot.

Double cream 10% of the milk (optional). I like very creamy yogurt so I always do mine adding the double cream.

Milk in the supermarkets is sold in pints so two pints is just over one litre which does not fill the jar to the full.

I have also tested making the yogurt using UHT milk and it has worked well just seemed to take longer time to set.

General Instructions:

Heat the milk to boiling point 86 to 90 degrees together with the double cream if you are using it, instead of the double cream you can add 2 table spoons of powder milk to the fresh milk.

Once boiled, let it to cool until it reaches 43-45 degrees, if I am in a hurry I place the saucepan on the sink over cold water until it reaches the 43-45 degrees. If I am not I just leave it there and go about doing my routines.

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 I use a digital thermometer, but my friends in Brazil just use their finger

My research tells me that the optimum temperature is 43 degrees but it can be higher or lower, I have been told that it must not be 48 degrees as this would kill the bacteria so be careful and make sure the temperature is lower.

To stop making a skin at the top of the milk while is cooling down, I stared  from time to time until it reaches the correct temperature.

When it reaches the 43-45 degrees add the live bio yogurt and mix well.

I once left it to cool down to 41 degrees as I forgot and went ahead with the whole process  without bringing it back to 43 degrees, and the yogurt came out a bit liquid, it tasted ok but was not set and thick as usual so now if the same thing happens I bring the temperature up again.

Transfer the milk mixture to the glass container/jars or you can leave it on the saucepan if you like and transfer it later when it is ready.

Cover your containers well with the cosy (blanket or any warm   garment, I used to use woolly hats before I made some cosies to fit  the containers).

The kit I give my friends has the jar and the cosy, I always put the jar on a plastic bag before putting into the cosy as for some reason sometimes it sweats and I do not like the cosy to get dirty.

Place the containers in a warm place to rest; it will take about 4 hours. If I do it at night I leave it until the morning which would be about 7 hours.

Examples of places to keep them warm:

Next to the radiators in Winter,

I heat the oven to 50 degrees and then I turn it off and place the containers there overnight.

If you got an airing cover just place the jar cover with the cosy there.

 In Brazil my farmer friend used to put it in the sun during the day but wrap it on a blanket if done over night.

After the yogurt is ready it is very important to put it in the fridge as soon as you can and wait for it to be cool before you taste it, actually it does not taste nice warm.

Once ready you can eat it as it is or strain it for the Greek yogurt effect.

When I make cheese cakes now I do not buy cream cheese or make quark I simply strain the yogurt for 24 hours in the fridge and use that instead of cheese, it works perfect.

The magic world of chocolate

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/453150?

Moulds ready to fill with chocolate

Painting the moulds

painting the moulds

Getting the chocolate ready to fill the moulds

I am now doing chocolate experiences or workshops registered with Airbnb Experiences, go to the link to book an experience or contact me to discuss plans.

www.airbnb.com/chonettetaylor

The workshop is about 4 hours making the chocolates and packing your produce to take home, but sometimes we spent longer time very much depends how much more we do.

Feel free to contact me to discuss anything you are interested, and if you are a group of friends that like to do the experience together, I could manage 4 people but the session would take a lot longer to do everything so between breaks for drinks and food a group experience could easily take 6 hours or the whole day, but it is fun.

Happy to adjust course time and even dates to suit you.

The day will consist of an introduction to chocolate making equipment and techniques, for use in a home environment. You will be able to produce very professional chocolates using the facilities of a home kitchen so you can continue to work with chocolate at your own home having been through the experience.

All equipment and ingredients will be provided.

Hands-on practical sessions:

How to temper (crystallise) chocolate, in a home environment (this is important as most chocolatiers only show the table technique)

How to make a ganache

How to make chocolates using moulds

Decorating moulds using cocoa butter colours

Coating the moulds, filling the moulds with ganache and sealing them

During Easter months if you got time, you can also make some Easter eggs.

How to take care of chocolate equipment

You will take away with you around 48 beautiful chocolates each for you to share with your friends and family to enjoy, beautifully packed.

Chippenham Folk Festival 2019
I will be at the Craft Marquee during the Folk Festival come and visit me there

Christmas biscuits

Christmas biscuits from my German days

Making biscuits is a very good way to entertain children, keep you warm in winter, and make you relax when you need to get away from mundane problems.

I have been making biscuits for over 40 years so I got all the recipes in my head and seldom I have to check my old notes, but just in case I thought I should put my recipes here for my friends to be able to refer to them when they also feel the excitement of going into the kitchen and make some biscuits.

Basic biscuit dough.

250 g. self raising flour

125 g. sugar

125 g. butter

1 egg.

Vanilla sugar – one table spoon or an envelope of commercial bought vanilla sugar.(they usually have 8 g.) or use vanilla extract if you like.

How to make the dough:

Make the dough using your hand to mix the flour, sugar, vanilla sugar  and butter until it resembles crumbs, add the egg and continue until the dough is good enough to roll, as the sizes of eggs varies use your judgment to add more flower if needed.

Roll out the pastry thin and cut it using biscuits cutter.

Bake it in a hot oven (190 C fan assisted oven) for just 10 minutes.

Practical notes from past experience

Basically the amount of flour you use, you add half the amount of sugar, also half butter and 1 eggs per each 250 g. of flour used.

For making the very pretty Christmas stars, heart pyramids I mix the flour with hazel nuts, so if I am making 500 g. of flour recipe I would make a mixture of 300 or 350 g. of flour and the rest of ground hazel nuts. I only use this mixture for the stars and hearts, for all other biscuits I use the basic recipe.

I have in the past done it using whole meal flour when I did not have hazel nuts instead of the hazel nuts, the flavour is not the same but the texture is perfect and the result is good.

To stick together the pyramid of biscuits I use jam, best to use a jelly type without lumps as it spread better when gluing the biscuits together.

Once done sprinkle the biscuits with icing sugar for decoration.

When using the plain basic recipe I often use the cutters that are fun like a snow man, Christmas tree, moon etc. I like lemon icing to decorate these types of biscuits.

For lemon icing this is what I do:

Using icing sugar add slowly fresh lemon juice to make a consistency that can be spread on to the biscuits, I never measured the amounts, I just do it by eye, I do small quantities so nothing goes to waste and if I need more I simply add more sugar and more lemon to the dish.

For the snow man I paint the eyes, mouth and buttons of his clothes with melted chocolate just use the tip of a knife or a tooth stick, it is fun and simple.

For Christmas trees I often use hundreds and thousands sprinkled over the lemon icing, it looks colorful and children love them.

If you want to make the biscuits that have an open star, heart, circle etc. in the middle and that is place on top of a plain one glued with jam it is best to use the German cutters that have two sets one plain and the other with a hole in the middle, try to get it, it makes life so much simple and the result is always perfect, I have never seen those cutters in the British shops but now a days the internet is a good source for such special things.

With this biscuits you sprinkle the icing sugar only on the top biscuit before you glue it to the bottom with the jam.

In December 2017 I managed to get some extra biscuit cutters in Liddle the German supermarket so I got two spare to give away.

January 2022 - Since my past post I have managed to find the biscuit cutters in Aldi as well and have given away quite a few but they seem to be on sale only during the Christmas season.

Yogurt cakes

Yogurt Cakes

Basic recipe

Traditionally done with lemon – they freeze very well

1 pot yogurt – I use plain

2 pots sugar

1 pot vegetable oil (corn –Mazola- or sunflower)

1 pot eggs

3 pots self raising flour

Rind and juice of lemons or limes I prefer the favour of limes, it is stronger

Back ground info:

For years when making this cake I use to use fix amounts of eggs, say 3 eggs for a small yogurt pot, 9 eggs for a large one etc. etc. and was always braking my brain wondering how many eggs if I changed the quantity of the yogurt pots until one day I had lots of egg whites left over from making crème brulee and did not feel energetic enough to make meringues, so I decided to make an experiment and use the egg whites mixed with the whole eggs together to fill up the size of the yogurt pot, the result was fantastic the cake was light and perfect, so next time I tried just using whole eggs to find out if the amount of eggs was the same as the recipe I had been making for years and it was.

The beauty of this is that you do not have to worry about the size of the eggs, and on this particular recipe it is very important to have the correct proportions of dry and wet ingredients.

How to make the cake:

Mix all the ingredients together and bake at 170 C (fan assisted) for 45-50 minutes.

Have the juice of the lemons/limes ready and as soon as you take the cakes from the oven, pour the juice over the cake and let it to soak for a little bit before you take the cake out of the tin.

This is very important as only when pouring the lemon juice over the hot cake it soaks in properly.

I used to add the lemon ring to the cake mixture at first, but now a day I am just too busy to bother to grate the lemon ring, but I know it adds an extra flavour.

I have to give the credits of this cake to my old friend Felicity, it was her that introduced the cake to me around 1995, and it only seems yesterday we used to get so excited about our experiments.

Variations

Since I found this technique so practical I have made a few variations of the same cake.

Nuts

Make a mixture of flour and ground nuts, can be ground almonds, hazel nuts, cashew nuts, any nuts you like, I find the flavour improves if you toast the nuts first and then ground them using a coffee grinder.

I would probably use one quarter of nuts for 3 quarters of flour, but never measure it, just add a hand full depending how many nuts I got at home.

When I use nuts I do not add the lemon as the nuts are strong enough no to need the extra lemon, but if you like it there is no reason why not adds lemon as well.

Chocolate

Believe it or not I have used this same recipe for making chocolate cakes, all I do is add some cocoa to the flour depending of the quality of the cocoa two or three table spoons full.

I also add a hand full of chocolate chips; this gives a nice bite when you are eating the cake as it stays whole and is really nice, I once added some brandy to the cakes as they came out of the oven just like I do with the lemon, but I am going to experiment making a mixture of strong coffee and Brandy to pour over the hot cake and see what happens.

Apples

During the Autumn there are plenty of apples everywhere and I get given apples by many people that know I like baking so during the harvest of 2011 not knowing what to do with so many apples I decided to try and add apples to the yogurt cakes, this is what I did:

I did some mixtures using ground nuts and others plain.

I cut the apples in quarters, then I sliced them and placed the slices on top of the mixture on the tin, all neatly in rows, when the cake rises the apples sink and not only looks pretty but it taste delicious as apples are moisture and makes the cake that much juicer and fresh.

I did freeze some to see how they came out and although a bit soggy on the top no one seemed to mind and the cakes were eaten fast.

Any other fruit or vegetables that you like, I have done many different ones and always comes fine.

Banana and yogurt cake

1 pot yogurt

1 pot vegetable oil

1 pot eggs

1 pot mashed bananas

2 pots sugar

3 pots self raising flour

Vanilla sugar or vanilla essence

A hand full of ground hazel nuts or any other type of nuts optional

Mix all ingredients and bake for 45 minutes at 170 Centigrade

Notes:

The bananas have to be very ripe as that way they are sweet and also soft when mashed with a folk.

This version of the banana cake comes out really light and moist, I did a batch in which I sprinkled sunflower seeds over the top before placing the tins in the oven, but I think one could put any type like flake almonds etc.

Other fruits

Following the same technique, use one pot of grated apples for apple cake..

One pot of grated carrots for carrot cake.

One pot of peaches, nectarines etc. whatever you fancy.

Also good using courgettes and I have even made it using strawberries.

Using your imagination the list is endless.

Also a perfect mixture when you have to do a sponge cake.