Yoghurt/ice cream makers, are they worth it?

zombiecazz

I have neither. I use a flask to make my yogurt and a bowl and an hand held mixer to make my ice cream. Wouldn't be without my hand held mixer as I use it for ice cream, cakes, cream and egg whisking.

tootles_2

I have both a Yoggi maker and and ice cream maker, use them both, the Yoggi maker is an electric one from Lakelend, have had it for a number of years, it makes 11/2 pints of yogurt and sometimes I drain it to make greek yogurt........would not be without it, can use it plain or mix it woth fruit puree.......you do not have to boil the milk before you start, just put a teaspoon of natural yogurt, 2 ozs of dried milk and one and a half pints of milk into the tub and switch on, I put mine on at night and in the morning I have a pot of yogurt. if I want to make greek yogurt I put double layer of muslin into a sieve over a jug pour in the yogurt and leave it in the fridge for about 4 hours, the whey drainsout and leaves you with the equivilent of actimel to drink or make scones with and lovely thick greek yogurt, add honey and chopped nuts, or stir in fruit puree, delicious.......

Ice cream maker comes in very handy now we have so much fruit in the garden, have strawberry and raspberry in the freezer now......also made chocolate, I cut up a mars bar into little bits and stirred it into the mixture before churning, its very morish.......

annie-c

Ted_Hutchinson wrote:

The great advantage is that you can make better ice cream than you can buy and we do this with bargain reduced end of date cream when it's at clearance prices. The problem is that even if the cream is reduced to 25p it still contains the same number of calories.

This made me laugh out loud!

Seriously though, a couple of questions from a novice: how else can you make yoghurt than with a maker? And what does the ice-cream maker do exactly - I saw one in TK Maxx that looked like an insulated bowl?

Ted_Hutchinson

annie-c wrote:

Seriously though, a couple of questions from a novice: how else can you make yoghurt than with a maker? And what does the ice-cream maker do exactly - I saw one in TK Maxx that looked like an insulated bowl?

It's quite easy to make yoghurt without an electric yoghurt maker. All the yoghurt maker does is keep the mixture at the correct temperature so the yogging takes place speedily. If you wanted you could warm the milk, add the skimmed milk powder (that makes it thicher) and starter and keep it warm in a flask, bowl in the airing cupboard. Bowl on a seed propogater base, bowl on a wine fermenting base, Lactobacillus is killed if exposed to temperatures over 55oC (130o F), and does not grow well below 37oC (98oF) so anything between these temperatures will do. Yoghurt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia suggests it takes 6 hrs. Mine is done in 3.
This is the ideal type of[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Ice Cream Maker [/FONT]as it actually freezes the ice cream using it's own freezer unit. This makes it much quicker and you don't have to plan ahead as you do with the insulated container Type all these do is to stir the mix as the contents freeze stopping the formation of crystals and keeping it smooth and delicous.

If you've room in the freezer then you could just store the container in the freezer so it's always ready for use but unfortunately we are always fighting for freezer space owing to my propensity for bargain hunting so if I return with end of date cream I have to make room for the ice cream maker container and leave it in there overnight before converting the bargain cream into bargain ice-cream. Once you've eaten home made icecream you'll never be really satisfied with the bought stuff again, unless it's really expensive, so be warned.

Stratford_Bill

You can make both yoghurt and ice cream without these gadgets. But as it is for a present, then such considerations do not matter.
The yoghurt maker, fine, as yoghurt is so much easier to make than ice cream.
The ice cream maker I would not bother with...
...unless it is one of those old fashioned ones that Hugh Fernleigh-Whittingstall - or whatever his name is - has down at the river cottage.

sashacat

I have been thinking about making my own yogurt...which yogurt maker would you suggest and any ideas as to where I can get one for a reasonable price, thanks

culpepper

Ivwe got 2 yoghurt makers. One is a small wide mouthed flask with 2 lids which works just like an ordinary food flask would.You put the yoghurt in it(one spoonful) then add tepid milk and mix,then leave to stand.The other is 5 little pots in a heater unit.You put the mixed up milk and yog in each pot or a teaspoon of yog then the milk in each pot and turn it on. I prefer the flask.

My icecream maker works well but hasnt been out of the cupboard this year as I never can be bothered with mixing up the ingredients ,remembering to freeze the bowl 24hours in advance. and washing it up afterwards.You cant dishwash it.

Ted_Hutchinson

sashacat wrote:

I have been thinking about making my own yogurt...which yogurt maker would you suggest and any ideas as to where I can get one for a reasonable price, thanks

Tchibo.co.uk -£14.99
I haven't used a bulk yoghurt maker so can't comment. I like the multi-pots as you can take them out with you when you go for a picnic, they fit neatly in the fridge, if you just need a little yoghurt it's easy to use half a pot and it leaves a space to stir some fruit/jam in the rest. but there may be advantages to the bulk method that I'm missing out on.

Whitefiver

sashacat wrote:

I have been thinking about making my own yogurt...which yogurt maker would you suggest and any ideas as to where I can get one for a reasonable price, thanks

Hi,

Like many others here, I have an Easiyo yogurt maker, which is appears to be foolproof - so even I can get consistent results. They are available from branches of Julian Graves and others (lakeland?).

The sachets are a little expensive, but the Greek Yogurt one is lovely. Good to start with the sachets, so you know what to expect, and so on. However, I use a couple of soupspoonfuls of the previous batch, together with UHT full cream milk, and about 1/3rd cup of dried skimmed milk now, and it is just as good, in my opinion.

There have been several discussions on the Easiyo on this board if you search.

Give it a go, you won't regret it!

Best wishes,

White.

Stratford_Bill

sashacat wrote:

I have been thinking about making my own yogurt...which yogurt maker would you suggest and any ideas as to where I can get one for a reasonable price, thanks

You certainly already own enough equipment to make yoghurt.
You boil up some milk, let it cool, when it is tepid, you stir in a carton of natural yoghurt, and leave it in the airing cupboard for a day or two. With the weather the way it is at the moment you won't even need the airing cupboard.
We have made yoghurt this way since 1978, and we are all still alive.
You do not actually need a patent yoghurt maker.