Desserts & Ice Creams

Make My Own Yogurt? Not So Much

I won a yogurt maker about a year ago on a blog giveaway. It wasn’t until just the other day that I finally tried to use it. I had thrown away the directions (oops!) but found them online, thankfully. The directions were fairly straight forward, but I was annoyed to find out I had to purchase dried starter cultures separately. Sorry, but no thanks. They did provide the option of using store-bought yogurt for a starter culture, even though it was pretty clear they did not recommend this. Despite the company’s recommendations, I used store-bought yogurt as my starter culture….Yogurt 1

I used unsweetened almond milk but right before I turned on the yogurt maker I started thinking…“what are the cultures going to use as food? There is no added sugar or lactose in this milk….”milk

I ignored my thoughts and pushed “start”. Within one hour there was proof of heat and condensation on the lid.Yogurt 2

12 hours later I opened the lid, very excited to try my yogurt.Yogurt 3

Don’t be fooled. This spoonful may look appetizing, but it tasted like curdled milk (which, it was!).Yogurt 4

My yogurt making experiment was a failure. As you can see the only “yogurt” was at the top of the glass jars. The rest was just all the water from my almond milk. Gross.Yogurt 5

Well, at least my refrigerator is at the proper temperature….Yogurt 6

I scrapped out all the yogurt and it made a total of about 6 ounces. I saved it for about 3 days, thinking maybe I would eat it in a smoothie, but that never happened. I went back to read the directions and realized almond milk was indeed listed as an option, but not unsweetened almond milk. I should have listened to…myself.

I think I spend enough time in the kitchen making things from scratch; ice cream, popsicles, granola, granola bars…you get the idea. I really never had the desire to make my own yogurt, therefore I’m sticking to my favorite store-bought brand.Yogurt 7

At least I know it’s the good stuff, with live and active cultures, and a nutrition profile that’s hard to beat!

Want to try making your own yogurt at home? I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com. It sounded simple enough, but I’ll leave it up to you to make it. Yogurt making is not for me!

QUESTION: Have you ever attempted to make yogurt? Have you ever been successful?

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Hi, my name is Rebecca Houston and I am a writer. I write about health, healthy food and daily meal plan for various websites.
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