Homemade Strawberry Yogurt (Yogurt Casero)

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Yoghurt made at home from milk and a spoonful of shop-bought yoghurt as the starter, with strawberries folded in. The work is ten minutes; the rest is twenty-four hours of waiting.

Prep Time10

Cook Time5

Fermenting1

Total Time1 15

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: homemade yogurt,, strawberry yogurt

Servings:

Calories: 108kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

½ liter whole or skim milk 1 litre for a more fluid yoghurt
250 g natural yogurt the starter: it has to have live cultures
1 pound strawberries hulled
Sugar to taste

Instructions

Hull the strawberries, blend them with a glass of the milk and sugar to taste, and set that aside.
Heat the rest of the milk in a pot over medium heat until it begins to boil.
Take it off the heat and let it cool until it is only lukewarm, warm to a clean finger and no more. This matters: the cultures in the yoghurt die in hot milk and the mixture will never set.
Pour the lukewarm milk into a sterilised glass or plastic container, add the natural yogurt and stir until it is smooth and evenly combined.
Stir in the blended strawberries.
Cover the container with parchment paper or a lid, wrap it in a cloth and a plastic bag.
Leave it for 24 hours somewhere with a steady temperature, out of draughts and dry.
Serve.

Notes

The temperature of the milk is the whole recipe. Yoghurt is made by live bacteria eating the lactose in milk, and those bacteria are killed well below boiling point. Milk is heated first to kill off anything else that might compete with them, and then it has to cool to lukewarm before the starter goes in. Warm to a clean finger, not hot. This is why the recipe was not working as written. The starter has to be a natural yoghurt with live cultures, which most plain yoghurts are but not all: anything heat-treated after fermentation has none left. The label usually says live or active cultures. Twenty-four hours somewhere warm and undisturbed. The cloth and the plastic bag are insulation, and the point is a steady temperature rather than a high one. Moving the container around during those hours breaks the set.

Nutrition