Yoghurt is one of my favourite things. It helps you with weight loss, it’s versatile, it fills you up and you can eat it any time of the day. The best yoghurt is one that you make yourself. My mum used to make our yoghurt in the 80s/90s with a bit of live yoghurt and milk, leaving it on the windowsill in some kind of warm water filled machine that by the morning would give you 6 small pots of natural yoghurt. You would then have to keep a little of that yoghurt to continue making it the next day. Thing is if you ate it all, then you’d have to go out and buy a small pot of live yoghurt to make it all over again. You ended up with pots of yoghurt every single day which if you liked natural yoghurt was a blessing. If you preferred flavoured then it wasn’t so great. If you wanted it sweeter and filled it with sugar it would go from a thick yoghurt to a thin watery one which wasn’t that great after all. That went by the wayside after a few years.
After I got together with Andy, he got the buzz to start cooking and baking. He popped into one of our local health food shops one day when they were doing a demonstration of the Easy Yo. He came out with one kit and 2 packets of their yoghurt mix. Again this lasted quite a few years until the container busted and we had a clear out so it went to the local recycling centre.
So, looking into doing stuff from scratch again (we’re making cheese these days too) I went on the hunt. I was alerted to Hansells.com who are a food group. They have been synonymous in New Zealand for 80 years. Their brands over here in the UK include the Coconut Collaborative, Gu, Tyrrells, the Snack Organisation to name a few so you already know that their products are going to be scrumptious! Ordered their starter kit, anticipating all the lovely yoghurt that I’d be filling my face with over the next month.
I then awaited delivery of the starter kit which thankfully only took a couple of days, and handed it straight to Andy as he’s the chef in our house. I didn’t even know he made the first lot until I was handed a 500g tub with a spoon and was told to try it. He had made me the coconut (they have several from Classic Natural, Thick and Creamy Greek Style & Honey, Unsweetened Greek Style and others) so the one Andy made was the Thick & Creamy Greek Style and Coconut with bits. The coconut bits were on the top, so i mixed those in and then tried it. It was fairly thick and very, very tasty. Andy says that it’s very similar to the Easy Yo kit, but the actual sachets are thicker and tastier (and who doesn’t like thick yoghurt – I know our dog does). So I polished that off within a few days and then we went onto the Thick & Creamy Unsweetened Greek Style.
What you need to do to make it is: Fill the largest container to the line required with enough hot water suitable for whatever kitchen temperature you are at (ambient, cold etc). Then put lukewarm water into the 1kg container about half way. Pour in sachet. Click the lid on. Then shake vigorously for a few seconds until dissolved, then top up with lukewarm water to the 1kg mark (in red). Reseal lid. Then put this into the largest container (now your water bath) and put the lid on. Leave this for 8 hours (preferably overnight). Open up in the morning and you have fresh yoghurt. You should then pop it in the fridge and use at your leisure for up to 2 weeks.
There you go. It’s so easy even I could do it. It’s a brilliant little kit, and is only £14 right now for the containers and 6 sachets (you get loads more than you do with the EasyYo starter kit). Total bargain, and so very simple to make fresh tasty yoghurt. It’s going to be a firm favourite in this house now as I’ve just gone and bought another 6 sachets to use over the next few weeks as I’m going back on my quest to lose 20 stone without having to resort to gastric surgery. Yoghurt is my saviour and now we have this kit we’ll be making it a lot more often to replace puddings and desserts. Blessing in disguise.
Hansells Yoghurt Maker Review
