Homemade Yogurt

Ages: 6 months and up
Ingredients
3 tablespoons commercial plain yogurt starter
2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
21⁄2 cups milk Large glass jar




Directions
Prepare jar by pouring boiling water into it and letting it stand for a few minutes before emptying. (Put a spoon into jar to ensure that it doesn’t break.) Mix the dried and whole milk and heat in a saucepan carefully until it almost reaches a boil. Set aside to cool until milk is just warm. Mix in commercial yogurt starter and pour into prepared jar. Screw on lid and wrap jar in a piece of clean blanket and place it in a plastic bucket. Put the bucket in a warm spot in the house and let stand for 6 hours. Unwrap and refrigerate. Note: How yogurt works: Bacteria live on the sugar in the milk and break it down into lactic acid which causes the milk to curdle and become like junket. As soon as the yogurt is the right thickness it must be placed in the refrigerator where the coldness stops the further growth of bacteria. If the milk is not chilled quickly enough, the curds separate and the yogurt becomes watery. If the milk is kept too warm, the bacteria
are destroyed and the milk doesn’t thicken into yogurt.