One Hour Yogurt

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to live 1/2 the year in Ukraine (while the rest was spent in Canada). This continued on for a few years and I am very attached to the people there. One of the methods of cooking that we have here in Canada is to use a slow cooker. This entails preparing various recipes in the morning and having a slow cooker (an electric pot with preset temperatures) to cook during the day. Tada when you arrive home at night you have a meal already prepared (safely). This is commonplace for people in North America but less so in other countries. Ukraine is one of those countries. However the appliance that most resembles a slow cooker was similar in appearance but had more sophisticated temperature settings. One of those settings created yogurt - just add milk and culture in the morning and it would be ready in the evening. I have a singular pleasure when I think about that appliance because I hope that it continues to benefit the people I gave it to.

I was going to compile a group of videos discussing the process of using a slow cooker to make yogurt but this one gets to the heart of the matter. Yogurt is formed by the combination of a milk and strains of healthy bacteria which cause the milk to coagulate due to acidity. This is why yogurt may take hours to days to be made (depending upon the process). I suspect that this method of making yogurt has a lower concentration of the healthy bacteria but it is very quick to make. If you can buy milk at your grocery store at a reduced price (I have only seen it once in Canada) due to being close to expiration date, it is possible to make a good large batch of yogurt.

Now once you have this batch ... what are you going to do with it. For those of you reading this in warmer climate over the past number of years more and more frozen yogurt desserts have become popular. This video has a number of ideas without needing special ice cream equipment ... just a food processor or blender.