So... getting back to the yoghurt

I had a message from Krystal this morning: Two posts and you haven't even done coconut yoghurt.

So here we go...

I have recently discovered the benefits for me (being pre-diabetic) as far as coconut yoghurt goes... namely that it's MUCH lower in sugar than almost any other sugar but it still has a really nice flavour.  That's not going to help you if you don't like coconut... but thankfully I love it! The huge downsides of coconut yoghurt in the supermarket is that they don't always have the one you like... which for me is Cathedral Cove - it's SOOO good! but coconut yoghurt also seems to be wildly expensive.  So I did a bit of research and found out that it's pretty easy to make... it's just coconut cream and some 'culture' which comes in the form of probiotics or coconut yoghurt that's already made.

Roll on my first experiment with coconut yoghurt!  So I decided to make two yoghurts at the same time... same conditions... same everything except two different coconut creams.  If you've ever done school science you might remember this as 'Fair Testing'... so much cooler when you don't have to write a report or essay about it afterwards :) For this experiment I used Fia Fia coconut cream which came out of the can about the consistency of pouring cream and was delicious!!!  The other coconut cream was Pacific Crown and it came out of the can with a half can of SOLID coconut at the top and half a can of coconut water underneath.  It took a LOT of effort to get it to mix together smoothly... including a quick blast in the microwave... and to be honest I didn't love the flavour so I wasn't holding out high hopes with this one.

For my 'culture' I decided to use some of my delicious Cathedral Cove yoghurt because it's got probiotics in it AND I already knew I liked the flavour so was hoping that it would maybe impart some of its deliciousness onto my jars of coconut cream.

Now the idea is that you simply mix together your coconut cream and culture into a sterilised jar using a WOODEN spoon as metals react and can harm your yoghurt.  You then stir it every 12 hours and after 48 to 72 hours your yoghurt should be ready.  They did say a little bit of warmth can help activate the yoghurt but my hot water cupboard doesn't exist anymore because I've got a self-insulating hot water cylinder... and it was getting a little chilly in Rotorua so I wrapped my little babies up in a towel at night to keep them warm.

And then I proceeded to wait... stirring... and taste testing... every 12 hours!  After 24 hours the jars of coconut cream were both getting thicker... Yay!  After 48 hours they were thicker again and the Pacific Crown coconut cream was starting to taste a lot nicer than it had at the start... maybe this will work out after all. After 72 hours I still had a really thick consistency but... there was none of the 'yoghurty' tang there should have been... so I gave them a helping hand in the form of some probiotics. I added ONE capsule to each jar... all I did was open the capsule, tip the powder in and give it a good stir with my WOODEN spoon.  Back to the waiting game...
 

This morning we had reached just under 96 hours (4 days) and YAY!!!  Yoghurty tang!!  I've made my first coconut yoghurt and it's GOOOD!  It's REALLY good! I've also discovered the Pacific
Crown yoghurt actually now tastes better than the Fia Fia yoghurt... at least to my palette. So now both jars are in the fridge where they apparently will continue to get a little tangier over the next few hours as they chill down.  And then all I have to do is consume them within 7 DAYS... yep I think I'm up for that delicious challenge!

 

During this experiment I've actually had my camera out... when I took it out of the bag the batteries were almost dead... and I honestly can't remember the last time I used it... shocking!!  So I've been playing around with 'arty' photos and I'm particularly happy with this one...

Who knew photographing yoghurt could make me so happy???