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Greek Yogurt Question

17 years ago

I recently found a recipe on the 'net for a Cranberry Spice Bundt Cake, that sounds fantastic! BUT! It calls for Greek yogurt, and I have no idea what that might be. How does Greek yogurt differ from plain old American yogurt? Could I substitute plain American yogurt, such as Dannon or Yoplait? Would it give the same results? If not, what COULD I substitute?

I live in a small town, and the nearest city that might have a store that would possibly carry Greek yogurt is 50 miles away.

Any suggestions, anyone?

Thank you!

Rusty

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Comments (3)

teresa_nc7
17 years ago
Greek yogurt is a much thicker product than regular yogurt. Some call it yogurt cheese. It is easy to make: line a strainer or small colander with cheese cloth that you have dampened - or - put a coffee filter in the coffee cone and suspend it in a cup or glass (also suspend the strainer or colander in a large bowl or cup). Spoon in regular yogurt and you will see a watery liquid (whey) begin to drip out of the cone or colander. Let this drain for 8 hours or a day or more. The longer you drain, the thicker your yogurt cheese or Greek yogurt will be. If you need a cup, spoon at least 2 cups of yogurt to drain.

Yogurt cheese is delicious with fruit and granola for breakfast, or on top of baked potatoes in place of sour cream, or seasoned to make your favorite dip.
User
17 years ago
I bought a little gizmo from Amazon.com that makes it handy to always have yogurt cheese ready to use. It's essentially a little plastic bucket with a strainer that lifts out easily to remove the whey from regular yogurt, and it has a tight fitting lid for storing in the fridge.

In a few weeks I reaped my investment from purchasing it in what I saved paying top dollar for Greek yogurt. You get the same result as the coffee cone method described above, but the simple gadget makes it much more convenient for me to make, store and keep on hand.

Almost every weekday morning I have a bowl of steel cut oatmeal, a soy bacon strip and a cup of fresh fruit with a dollop of yogurt cheese and a sprinkle of wheat germ on it for breakfast. The yogurt makes the fruit seem like a yummy indulgence and it's a great way to get in a serving of calcium.
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TEN HOURS????? I usually have yogurt in 4-hours. How much liquid and what kind of "milk" or mixture are you fermenting, and how much culture are you adding to it? Two quarts + 3 T. yogurt is a fairly standard ratio. If you are using leftover yogurt from your last batch (or several subsequent batches), it may be getting weak and you need an infusion of new bacteria from new (commercial) yogurt. I'd also suggest using Stonyfield Farm Yogurt as a starter. While all yogurt brands with live active cultures have 2 bacteria strains, Stonyfield has 6 live cultures and I think it improves the yogurt quality. You can use an ice cube tray lined with plastic wrap, and put 1-Tablespoon of the Stonyfield yogurt in each cube and freeze it, pop the yogurt cubes out and store them in a container in the freezer to use later. When you need a new starter, you can use the frozen cubes of yogurt (thaw in the refrigerator) as your culture, the next time you need a new/stronger culture. -Grainlady (the 3 a.m. early bird)
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grainlady, Re: your last post, I have tried several different started cultures. The cultures were much more of an issue when I was incubating regular yogurt. Some produced more whey than others. The required incubation time could vary dramatically also. I didn't like the taste of whey at all, and when I realized about the high carb content in regular yogurt, stopped trying to improve my homemade regular yogurt. I have found it much easier to make greek yogurt. Since the whey is drained, the resulting yogurt tastes better. The taste of whey is really repellent to me. The goal is to improve the protein to carb ratio of my yogurt. In theory, if I drained more whey, I could remove all the carbs without removing all the protein, and thus have a nearly infinite protein to carb ratio :) However, I have done the math and I don't think that's possible. If 85% of the weight of the yogurt was drained as whey, the resulting yogurt would have 256 calories per cup, 47.7g of protein and 18.24g of sugar. Ie. a 2.6:1 ratio of protein to carb. About the same as the store yogurt, yes, but also with 2x as many calories. My guess is that would be some inedible thick yogurt ! However, I just don't think it's possible to remove that much whey. There has to be some process through which more sugar is removed than just by straining the whey. That, or I'm using the wrong nutritional information for the liquid whey. Adding protein like gelatin would work, it would increase the protein : carb ratio, it but would also increase the calories to an amount much higher than the amount in store brand yogurt. Right now my home made yogurt has the same calories as store brand - only the protein : carb ratio is off.
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Rusty
Original Author
17 years ago
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! ! To both of you! ! ! I have regular plain yogurt in the fridge, & will get it to draining today, so I can try this cake tomorrow! I just can not thank you enough, I just KNEW there would be someone on this forum that would/could help.
Rusty

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