Seeing as I have this new fandangled multi-cooker, with a yoghurt setting no less, I figured I should try making my own yoghurt. Never done it before, seemed straight forward enough. We also go through more than a 500g tub of Mundella a week (at $5/tub!). It’s crazy delicious yoghurt, so if I could somehow reproduce that texture as well, that would be amazing (and cost effective).
The UK Optimum Pressure-Cook Pro book has a basic recipe but they put the milk straight into the bowl and hit start. Really? It’s just dump and go? But all that I’ve read about making yoghurt involves heating the milk up first. Even the InstantPot people heat their milk up first.
Looking into this further, it seems that food science people say scalding the milk denatures the proteins which results in thicker yoghurt, and also apparently kills off any microbes that may compete with the yoghurt culture. Which essentially leads to the commonly accepted process of yoghurt making to be:
- Heat the milk to ~80C
- Cool the milk to ~45C
- Add the starter culture
- Ferment the mixture for 6 hours
As a non-food science person, I read this, nod quietly, and determine that I need to test both methods side-by-side to actually see what happens. Because, science, and also I’ve been heating the milk first, so if I can save time by skipping step 1 and 2, I’ll take it.
Complete segue here. I love my Range Thermometer by Supermechanical. I got the first iteration through Kickstarter and it’s great. I hook up one of my old iPhones and set the target temperature on the app, and an alarm goes off when it gets there. Based on the rate of change, it also gives you an estimate of how long it’ll take. I’ve got both the sharp-ended one for meats and the round-ended one for everything else. They’re especially useful because our conventional gas oven is weird and inconsistent.
But I digress. In my latest run of yoghurt, I divided my milk and did steps 1-4 for one portion, and only 3-4 for the other. Some of the heated milk was removed to dissolve some milk powder in it before dividing back into the two portions. The process is started in the morning, I take it out of the Pressure-Cook Pro in the afternoon, and refrigerate it until the following morning.
So that was interesting. The yoghurt on the left didn’t have the milk heated first, the yoghurt on the right did. The left is pretty thin, like normal yoghurt in texture, the right is thicker, and leaves the mark where the spoon cut into it. It’s closer to Greek yoghurt in consistency. Guess there won’t be any shortcuts for me. I don’t mind though, making my own yoghurt that’s similar to Mundella is absolutely worth the extra time spent.
| Servings |
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- 1 L full-cream milk
- 2 Tbsp milk powder
- 4 Tbsp starter yoghurt
- 1 Tbsp vanilla essence optional
Ingredients
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- Heat the milk until it reaches 80C. Using a microwave-safe glass bowl and a 1200W microwave, 2 minutes at a time, this required 3x 2min, + 1min.
- Whisk in the milk powder until dissolved.
- Cool the milk to 45C. This can take 20-30 minutes depending on room temperature.
- Whisk in the starter yoghurt and vanilla essence (if using).
- Fill the Optimum Pressure-Cook Pro with water until the minimum line.
- Fill glass jars with the yoghurt mixture and place in the Pressure-Cook Pro bowl on a trivet, or directly in the bowl. Ensure the jars used still allow the cooker to close properly.
- Use the Yoghurt setting and reduce the time to 6 hours. Press start.
- After 6 hours, carefully remove the jars from the cooker, screw on the lids and place in the fridge to finish setting.
I use three wide-mouth jars. Bonne Maman are the perfect size, and can be placed directly in the bowl without spilling (carefully). But any jars or glass containers which fit the bowl and can collectively take the approximately 1L volume will work. You can use a trivet if you want more stability, but you'll need to test the jar heights on the trivet first to ensure the lid can close.
My original starter was Mundella. I don’t buy any other yoghurt so I cannot honestly say if the starter makes a difference to outcome, but I’d use your favourite just in case it does.