Homemade Baby Yogurt

A while ago I bought a yogurt maker.  This is a nifty little machine that I can make 7 individual sized yogurts for myself, but it is also great for babies/kids.  I always have a small guilty feeling each time I buy yogurt from the store, not only because of the waste of the container, but because it is so easy to make it at home.

Today, I decided that I would break it out and make some yogurt.  Previously I made flavored yogurt with fruits and sugar, but I have found it is much easier to add flavor to plain yogurt.  Plain yogurt is so simple to make.  The only ingredients needed are milk and either a yogurt starter or plain yogurt.   (The purpose of the yogurt starter is to add the necessary cultures to create the yogurt, but it can easily be done by mixing some plain yogurt that you already have into your milk. )

The directions are as follows:

• Bring milk to a boil (any amount of milk, it depend on how much yogurt you want to make, in my case I made 42 oz.)
• Once milk boils, remove from heat.
• When milk is luke warm, strain milk through a wire strainer.
• In a small container mix plain yogurt with a small amount of milk until it is in a liquid form.
• Pour the mixture into the strained milk.
• Pour all of the liquid into individual containers.
• Place uncovered in yogurt maker.
• Turn on yogurt maker.
• Wait 7 hours.
• Remove yogurt, cover with lid, place in refrigerator.
• Enjoy!

If you don’t have a yogurt maker, you can easily make yogurt by placing your pot of strained milk on a heating pad for seven hours, or in an oven with a pilot light.

The yogurt maker is handy since I now have individual sized yogurts ready to eat.

Making yogurt is a wonderful way to know what your baby is eating.  Having fresh homemade yogurt allows  you to have control of what goes into it.  It won’t have any preservatives, sugar or artificial flavorings.

I love to add a banana to yogurt for my son.  When I don’t have fresh fruit on hand I grab a bag of frozen strawberries, blueberries or peaches to add.  The fruit alone sweetens the yogurt and there is no need for the addition of sugar.

Tagged as: baby yogurt, fresh fruit, homemade yogurt

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