Tools of the trade for Rice Cooker Yoghurt - the Rice Cooker, woolen sock and plastic container.Inspired by Bariah's Mums home made yoghurt recipe- I thought I would try it myself. Bariah's Mum boils a litre of full cream milk, then stirs in a large tablespoon of natural yohgurt, leaves on the stove top to cool to temperature that she can stand to dip her pinky finger into, wraps in a tea towel, then wraps in a blanket and takes to leave in a warm part of the house for 12 hours...
My version of this (1 litre UHT milk $1.10), a plastic container and a large woolen sock was not quite so successfull, after 12 hours my yoghurt mix was still pretty liquid- and I don't think the sock kept things warm enough, as at the half way point (6 hours) the container was pretty cold -
so to the rescue - the trusty Rice Cooker! Good friend of the student, the busy and the granny flat dweller- I've found yet another use
Placing the sock wrapped yoghurt containers in the top steamer tray, I filled the bottom with about 1/3 water and placed onto the "keep warm" (as opposed to "rice cooking") setting- this meant a very low heat. I couldn't fit the lid on as my containers were too tall - so I covered with a thick tea towel and balanced an upside down saucepan over this...the plan was to leave for a few hours but a little miscommunication about what "please turn off the rice cooker" meant before we went to bed resulted in the yoghurt 'keeping warm' in the rice cooker overnight
I can't complain as it is perfect set yoghurt - a slight hint of the original shop bought yoghurt flavour I used as the base (vanilla), though a little more bitter natural taste but I am so pleased.
1 litre of milk made a large container of yoghurt, next time I would use a flatter container that would actually fit safely inside the steamer tray - I saved myself about $5/week making the yoghurt at home, plus reduced the amount of waste from all the yoghurt containers.
Next I will experiment with flavours to reduce the bitterness.
Posts
