Nicole Weston - Perfectly Creamy Frozen Yogurt

To Mom, Dad, and Rob, for all their support and willingness to eat as much frozen yogurt as I could make

As a kid on hot days in Southern California, I always looked forward to enjoying a cool treat after a long day at school. Sometimes I had an ice-cold soda or a smoothie, but the treat I loved most was frozen yogurt.

When frozen yogurt first became popular, it was as a soft-serve substitute for ice cream. It was sweet and creamy, but it came in very few identifiable flavors and its main selling point was that it was a lower-fat, more healthful alternative to traditional ice cream. It was hugely popular when it became available in the early 1980s, but growth in the frozen yogurt market slowed after a few years because the yogurt itself was bland and more compelling as a vehicle for toppings like shredded coconut, yogurt chips, and rainbow sprinkles than as a unique treat.

Plain yogurt has a tart, tangy flavor that comes from the natural cultures that are used to turn ordinary milk into what we know as yogurt. Yogurt wasnt very popular when frozen yogurt was first introduced, except among the very health conscious, but as better-tasting, thicker yogurts grew in popularity, frozen yogurt also started to change and to taste like yogurt. That signature yogurt tang became a hallmark of high-quality frozen yogurts made with premium ingredients. This new style of frozen yogurt launched a yogurt revolution, and it is now more popular than ever before.

The recipes that follow show you how to make frozen desserts at home with the tangy, fresh flavor of premium frozen yogurts.

Frozen yogurt is a dessert made with yogurt as its base, but there is a big difference between yogurt that has been frozen and frozen yogurt. Yogurt that has been frozen is grainy and icy. It shatters instead of scoops and does not blend well with added ingredients.

Frozen yogurt should be creamy and smooth, and like ice cream it should be something that you can store in your freezer and scoop when you want to eat some. Its easy to make at home, and making your own frozen yogurt gives you complete control of the ingredients and flavors that will go into your desserts.

Frozen yogurt does present some challenges that ice cream does not.

Yogurt doesnt freeze well on its own because a major component of yogurt is whey, the watery part of milk. Whey freezes solid, just like water. So when you freeze plain yogurt, it develops icy crystals and loses its texture and the same thing can happen to homemade frozen yogurt. You end up with something thats a far cry from the creamy, smooth texture that you want in a frozen dessert.

Commercially made frozen yogurts often have stabilizers added to enhance their texture, and commercial machines can infuse enough extra air into the base to keep the frozen yogurt soft. Home ice cream makers arent as powerful as commercial machines, but there are a few things you can do to ensure that your frozen yogurt tastes delicious and stays scoopable even after sitting in the freezer for a few days.

The first trick is to minimize the amount of whey in your frozen yogurt base by using thick, Greek-style yogurt, which already has a lot of the whey strained out of it. This thicker yogurt will be less likely to form large ice crystals when frozen. The second trick is to use full-fat yogurt and dairy, since the little bit of extra fat will give your frozen yogurt additional creaminess. The small amount of fat will also help prevent the yogurt from freezing too hard. Finally, the most important thing you can do to achieve a pleasing, scoopable texture is to infuse extra air into your yogurt mixture before churning. I call this the Meringue Method, because I use an easy-to-make meringue to aerate the base and help ensure a deliciously smooth finished product every time.

The Meringue Method for making frozen yogurt involves using a cooked meringue, also known as an Italian meringue, to incorporate extra air into the frozen yogurt base before the churning phase. Meringue is a mixture of egg whites and sugar that is beaten until stiff and foamy. Most meringues are made with raw eggs and then incorporated into recipes that call for cooking the meringue before serving. The Italian meringue uses a different technique to produce meringue that is completely cooked and safe to eat without any additional cooking or baking; it is an ideal addition to frozen yogurt. The meringue is very easy to prepare and makes a big difference in the creaminess of the finished yogurt.

To make a cooked meringue, you first beat room-temperature egg whites until theyre foamy. Then you slowly stream boiling sugar into the egg whites while beating them until soft peaks form. The egg whites in the finished meringue are completely cooked; you can fold them into any yogurt mixture without additional cooking.

Another advantage of the Meringue Method is that the melted sweetener for the recipe is easily incorporated into the yogurt. Many recipes call for long periods of strong stirring to dissolve granulated sugar into the yogurt. So, though it may seem complicated at first, it takes only a few minutes to make the meringue, and the results are well worth the effort.

Most of the recipes in this book call for using an ice cream maker to churn your frozen yogurt base into actual frozen yogurt. There is a wide variety of ice cream makers on the market. They come in many sizes and in a range of prices, so you are sure to find something that will suit your needs. An ice cream maker will give you the best results and allow you to make frozen yogurt much more quickly than doing it by hand.

The purpose of an ice cream maker is to chill an ice cream or frozen yogurt base mixture quickly while adding air to it. Rapid chilling reduces the number and size of ice crystals in the finished product, so it will be smooth and creamy. Adding air to the mixture softens it, making it easy to scoop when frozen. That added air also makes frozen desserts taste better, since slight aeration allows the frozen mixture to melt smoothly and evenly on your tongue.

Ice cream makers turn the process of creating frozen yogurt into a job thats quick and easy, but it is possible to make frozen yogurt without an ice cream maker. To do this, simply make the yogurt base of your choice and pour it into a large baking dish. Place the baking dish in the freezer and come back and give the mixture a thorough stir with a fork after 15 to 20 minutes. This breaks up any large ice crystals that may have formed during the freezing. Check back every 15 to 20 minutes, repeating the stirring process until the base has become thick and is mostly frozen. At this point, you can stir in any flavorings the recipe calls for and then serve your frozen yogurt or transfer it to another container for longer storage.