Homemade Yogurt with Powdered Milk

I don't know if you're like me but I have a lot of powdered milk in my food storage and it is one of the hardest things for me to rotate.  My rotating methods for the milk have been to either a.) donate it to the food shelter or b.) add a little vanilla to it so it tastes better and to try to use it on my cereal in the morning, but honestly, I don't really look forward to the mornings I know I will be drinking that.

I was so excited when one of my friends told me about using powdered milk to make yogurt.  First of all, I have never tried making yogurt before but the recipe is so easy, it supposedly tasted pretty good, and best of all uses powdered milk.  My family eats a lot of yogurt so I decided this was definitely worthy of a try.  And. . .my family loved it!  It doesn't taste like powdered milk was used and it doesn't have the sour tang that plain yogurt from the store has.  I have been eating it plain, but my kids are enjoying mixing in a little honey or jam with it.

Homemade Yogurt

Prep Time:  5 minutes (active), 8 hours (passive)

4 cups warm water (105 - 110 degrees)
1/4 cup Dannon plain yogurt
1 1/2 cups powdered milk

1.  Put  water in a blender.

2.  Add the plain yogurt and blend to mix.  (The plain Dannon yogurt has active cultures in it--I buy the 32 oz. containers and freeze the yogurt in ice cube trays.  Each of my yogurt cubes is 1 Tbsp., so I put in 4 of them when making a batch.)  Also, if you are using the yogurt in frozen cubes you may need to allow more than 6 - 8 hours for the yogurt to set.

3.  Add the powdered milk.  Blend the mixture until smooth.

4.  Carefully pour the mixture into clean pint or quart sized containers (I use wide mouthed Mason jars) and cover with a lid.

5.  Incubate the yogurt in a warm spot for 6 to 8 hours, or until it is set almost as thick as store-bought yogurt.   I place my jars of yogurt on a heating pad covered with a towel.  I set the heating pad to low and cover the jars with a large bowl or pan, and after about 8 hours--voila!  yogurt!

6.  Chill the yogurt.

Makes 1 1/2 quarts of yogurt.