We wanted to make our own yogurt- namely because organic yogurt was so much expensive than organic milk- so my husband went out and bought a yogurt maker.

His mom had one when he was a kid; for awhile yogurt makers were fairly common in places like Spain (yogurtera) and France (yaourtière). And now his evening ritual with our 3-year-old involves making their own yogurt (mixing “good bugs” with milk and letting them grow overnight).

A yogurt machine is basically a warming hut for yogurts (you can make yogurt without one, but it’s more difficult). The recipe: you add a culture or simply a spoonful or two of leftover yogurt to every jar, mix it with milk and leave it to culture the milk overnight. It’s a fermentation process that happens faster or slower depending on the type of cultures you use.

Then there’s the topic of probiotics and good bacteria. One of the benefits of making your own yogurt is you can let it ferment for as long as you’d like, thereby encouraging more of the “good” bacteria. You can also choose your mix, making sure to include probiotic bacteria like Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, and Steptococcus Thermophilus.

In this video, I captured my husband and daughter’s nighttime yogurt brewing (followed up by our lunchtime ritual eating our yogurt dessert on our terrace).