Lactose-free yogurt
A rich homemade yogurt, with the offending lactose taken out!
Ingredients
- 1 litre of lactose-free milk The percentage doesn’t really matter, though I go for 2 per cent. This is now fairly easily available in North America. In other countries, unfortunately, this ingredient presents more of a challenge
- 1 cup of pre-made yogurt with live cultures (most regular yogurt is fine, but aim for full fat and absolutely no flavoured stuff!)
- a big pot
- a big glass bowl or casserole dish with a lid
- a warm spot: on top of your fridge the inside of your turned-off oven with only the lamp on, or even a plastic cooler with blankets.
Instructions
- Fill a clean sink halfway with very cold water. Go on, you can even dunk some ice cubes in there.
- Take your cup of yogurt out of the fridge and let it rest at room temperature.
- Pour all of your milk into a big pot, and set it to medium-high. Cover the lid, and sit and watch the pot. They say a watched pot never boils, and you don’t want this thing to come to a full boil. After 5 minutes, test the milk by placing a very clean finger in the pot and then dabbing that drop on the outside of your other palm. When the milk feels hot and is very gently starting to bubble in the pot, take it off the stove (this could take anywhere between five and fifteen minutes).
- Alternative: you may also want to invest in a thermometer. The ready milk should measure about 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Take the lid off and place the pot in the half-full sink. Wait about 10 minutes before you start the same testing. This time, the milk should feel cool to touch.
- On a fancy thermometer, this would be about 100 degrees Farenheit.
- Now, pour your milk into the clean glass bowl. Dump a cup of room-temperature yogurt into your milk, and stir gently with a wooden spoon.
- Cover your bowl with a lid.
- Now, comes the fun part: place your glass bowl into a pre-determined warm place (on top of your fridge, the inside of your turned-off oven with only the lamp on, or wrapped in blankets inside a plastic cooler). I always go for the oven.
- Leave it alone overnight. Or, if it’s midday when you’re testing this (and it should never be midday. Yogurt-making is for lazy people who want time to do their work for them, and it goes best with a full night’s sleep), wait six to eight hours.
- Taste your yogurt. At this point, it’ll be sour and warm, and quite runny. It’ll harden in the fridge, after which you can ladle it into about 500ml pre-washed glass jars.
Notes
- For neatly packaged yogurt, skip the glass bowl in step 5 and pour your cooled-off milk directly into four pre-washed glass jars. Add a cup of prepared yogurt, distributing it evenly between the jars, one spoonful at a time. Place the jars on a baking sheet into your warm spot, and leave overnight. It’ll harden in the fridge.
- For silky, creamy Greek yogurt, line a plastic colander with about four layers of cheesecloth large enough that the ends drape over the sides of the colander. After your yogurt has sat overnight in its warm nest, pour it carefully into the colander, and let it drain. If left at room temperature, about one hour should be enough (check for desired consistency). In the fridge, it can rest comfortably for two to four hours, but you may have to add some of the pooled whey back. And voila, you got some delicious Greek yogurt!
- For silky, creamy Greek yogurt, line a plastic colander with about four layers of cheesecloth large enough that the ends drape over the sides of the colander. After your yogurt has sat overnight in its warm nest, pour it carefully into the colander, and let it drain. If left at room temperature, about one hour should be enough (check for desired consistency). In the fridge, it can rest comfortably for two to four hours, but you may have to add some of the pooled whey back. And voila, you got some delicious Greek yogurt!