Ain't nothin' like it

I made home made yogurt this week. I have the Donvier yogurt maker, which I received for my birthday last month. It's pretty easy. All you do is heat milk, let it cool, add a starter of some sort and let it "cook" in the yogurt maker. My dilemma was, do I start from dried yogurt starter, such as this, or start from live, active culture, from a plain yogurt. Well, I decided to go with the Yogourmet freeze-dried starter. I made the yogurt on Tuesday evening, and let it go overnight in the yogurt maker. I pulled it out after 12.5 hrs and refrigerated it, which stops the cooking process. The manufacturer's instructions recommend 10 hrs - 19 hrs for cooking time. The longer you leave it in, the thicker, and more tangy it gets.
I tired it when I got home last night.
It was very good. Great consistency, clung to the spoon, lots of tang. I sweetened it with a small amount of vanilla syrup. Very tastey. I brought some to work today, that I sweetened with a small amount of gingerbread flavored syrup.
The next batch I make, I'm going to let go a tad bit longer to try to thicken it up a bit more.
This evening, I'm going to go home and puree some frozen berries, such as these, from Cascadian Farms, strain them, and flavor the yogurt with the berry "coulis". The frozen berries are a great alternative to fresh when it's not berry season.
Max, my 3.5 year old ate some of the vanilla yogurt last night. That's the real taste test. I'm glad the yogurt passed.