*ZEVIA giveaway ends Sunday!*
Oh yeah– YOGURT MAKER!!
A little while ago, the generous folks at CSN gave me a 30$ giftcard to get the item of choice on their websites. I chose the Tribest Yolife Yogurt Maker, seeing as I LOVE yogurt and totally loved the idea of making any flavor I wanted (I’m thinking of doing a “peanut butter and jelly” the next time I try this machine!!)
So, I opened up my box, washed the containers and got ready to go.
Uh-oh. One thing missing. I needed yogurt cultures! So, I packed up the yogurt machine and went looking for yogurt cultures at some stores.
So after some searching I finally found some. Hooray! Now I can make tasty yogurt from home!
What kind of flavor did I want to make? Fruity? Savory? Sweet? (I ended up using 1/4 cup sugar, a little bit of stevia, 1 tablespoon of banana extract, and a little bit of vanilla extract as well to the milk.)
I heated 4 cups of skim milk in a pot (before a boil) and let cool. This whole process took about an hour or so.
Then I had to put the cultures in a separate cup with a little bit of the heated then cooled down milk, and stir. I noticed that it sort of smelled like cheese! Then I added that little cup of milk back to the pot, and mixed again.
I ended up filling 6 of the little jars that the yogurt maker came with the milk mixture, and put them in the yogurt machine (without the jars’ lids on), and then placed the cover on the machine. I plugged it in, set the timer for 12 hours and well. Now all I had to do was wait!
The whole process took about 16 hours. I started at 4pm Friday and took it out around 8 am Saturday. Then of course, I had warm yogurt, so I had to stick it in the fridge to cool off. I let it sit for 24 hours in the fridge, and then took one out. It sort of had a silken tofu appearance, or resembled when I once had a soy yogurt. It looked firm on top, but then when I scooped some with my spoon, it kind of fell apart. It sort of looked like watered down cottage cheese in a way. Perhaps the next time I try it I’ll leave it in the yogurt machine longer? Or use different ingredients?
Overall, this gets 3 stars. It was a little time consuming, and didn’t really give me the texture I wanted. I do like the concept of being able to make custom flavors, and being able to control the nutrition.
So, a question(s) for you readers! What flavor should I make next? Do you have any exciting or good ideas? Please leave a comment below if you’ d like to give me some ideas! =)
*also-Has anyone used a yogurt machine maker and can give me some advice on how to get firmer yogurt? I would appreciate it!
