Homemade yogurt

My husband enjoys taking Yoplait yogurts with him to school, but I really don’t like the list of ingredients. And I prefer the taste of homemade yogurt--especially with a little bit of honey and some chocolate chips. Therefore, I’ve been looking for an easy way to make homemade yogurt. I was excited when I found the following slow cooker yogurt recipe adapted from the A Year of Slow Cooking blog:

Yogurt:
4 cups of milk (I used skim)
1/4 cup store-bought natural, live/active culture plain yogurt to use as a starter for your first batch (Dannon is a good brand)
Powdered milk
frozen/fresh fruit or chocolate chips for flavoring
honey
thick bath towel

Directions:
This is an easy, but lengthy process. Be sure to set aside enough time to keep an eye on the yogurt.
Step 1: Plug in your crockpot, and turn to low. Add the milk. Cover and cook on low for 2-1/2 hours. Unplug your crockpot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours.

Step 2: When 3 hours have passed, scoop out 1 cups of the warmish milk and put it in a bowl. Whisk in 1/4 cup of store-bought live/active culture yogurt. Then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. Stir to combine.

Step 3: Put the lid back on your crockpot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation. Let it sit for 8 hours.

Step 4: After 8 hours, it will have thickened, but will be runnier than store-bought yogurt. You can add powdered milk to thicken it a bit. Set aside 1/4 cup of plain yogurt as a starter for your next batch.

Step 5: Mix yogurt with honey and chocolate chips or fruit. Pack into containers and refrigerate for up to a week.

Tomorrow, I’ll update this with photos and give my review of the recipe and process.