No? Well, here's the story. A while back I was reading a post on The Simple Country Creative. This is the blog of Polla Posavec, a local West Australian artist (she's also part of my extended family just so you know). She writes about aspects of her life on a bush block outside Perth and that includes food. When I had kids at home I used make yoghurt but somehow since it's just down to Pisces and me I never seem to get around to doing. I've no idea why I stopped - it's simple enough to make - and as I've recently started getting interested in making fermented foods I had been toying with the idea of starting again. So when Polla wrote about making yoghurt using UHT milk it piqued my interest and I wondered if you could use powdered milk.
I made a few enquiries of my Facebook friends and it seemed possible so I got out my trusty Dairy-o yoghurt kit. This is basically an insulated container - that's what the slightly wonky photo is of - into which you put your jar of yoghurt mixture and then leave it alone until it ferments to your taste. It also comes with a handy heat resistant thermometer that clips on to the side of your saucepan. I have no idea how old this is but I seem to remember having it before Virgo was born so it's probably very old but being low tech it'll last as long as I can get replacement jars in case of breakages.
So yesterday was the day. I mixed up a litre of instant powdered milk according to the directions plus an extra tablespoon of milk powder (not essential but it makes for a thicker, creamier end product), heated it to between 85-90°C, left it to cool to 44°C, mixed in the starter - I used one heaped tablespoon of commercial natural yoghurt, poured it into the jar, loosely screwed on the lid and put the jar into the flask where it fermented for around six and a half hours before it reached the degree of tartness I like. Into the fridge it went overnight and this is the result.
And this is it as I ate it with a handful each of blueberries and flaked almonds. Yum.
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