The evening that we brought the raw milk home, I set aside a quart to make a batch of yogurt. It cultured overnight, and I put it in the refrigerator Sunday morning before church. Monday, I finally had a chance to taste it. I gave Precious our last cup of pasteurized milk yogurt, and I had the raw milk yogurt with the cream on top. (feels so nostalgic to say that!)
I noticed several things about the raw yogurt. First of all, it was delicious, with small morsels of chewy, slightly soured cream suspended in the thick yogurt. It struck me that yogurt from pasterized whole milk is thin and quite drinkable. To compensate for this and make its texture more like raw yogurt, manufacturers add gelatin, along with a host of other additives. Well, folks, I'm happy to announce that you can have great flavor and texture when you culture raw milk!
Precious finished all but a small bite of her pasterized yogurt, so I scraped up the last bite for comparision's sake. It tasted like plastic compared to my raw yogurt. I was amazed at the difference.
Raw milk yogurt is a great success. Monday, however, I attempted another variation of the soaked-wheat bread. For my first batch, my acidic additive was apple cider vinegar. The second, and quite wonderful batch had whey in it; for my latest batch, I used cultured buttermilk. It was a little past-date, which usually isn't a problem for normal buttermilk usage.
Well, it turned out to be a small problem for soaking wheat. When I took the towel off the bowl, the first thing I noticed was that the wheat-ball had doubled in size. When I removed the plastic wrap, I smelled an "off" smell. Thinking the result could turn out somewhat sourdough-y, I went ahead and kneaded the other ingredients into the dough and tossed it into the bread machine for the dough cycle.
When I divided and shaped the dough for its final rise in the loaf pans, it smelled a little less strange. My hopes were rising...
... And so did the bread in the oven! I got a lot of oven spring from this batch; it would have easily made three loaves. When it came out, it had a faint remnant of that peculiar smell, but so far, no one has gotten sick from it. I guess it's okay. But, I learned my lesson: no [out-of-date] buttermilk for the soak.
I noticed several things about the raw yogurt. First of all, it was delicious, with small morsels of chewy, slightly soured cream suspended in the thick yogurt. It struck me that yogurt from pasterized whole milk is thin and quite drinkable. To compensate for this and make its texture more like raw yogurt, manufacturers add gelatin, along with a host of other additives. Well, folks, I'm happy to announce that you can have great flavor and texture when you culture raw milk!
Precious finished all but a small bite of her pasterized yogurt, so I scraped up the last bite for comparision's sake. It tasted like plastic compared to my raw yogurt. I was amazed at the difference.
Raw milk yogurt is a great success. Monday, however, I attempted another variation of the soaked-wheat bread. For my first batch, my acidic additive was apple cider vinegar. The second, and quite wonderful batch had whey in it; for my latest batch, I used cultured buttermilk. It was a little past-date, which usually isn't a problem for normal buttermilk usage.
Well, it turned out to be a small problem for soaking wheat. When I took the towel off the bowl, the first thing I noticed was that the wheat-ball had doubled in size. When I removed the plastic wrap, I smelled an "off" smell. Thinking the result could turn out somewhat sourdough-y, I went ahead and kneaded the other ingredients into the dough and tossed it into the bread machine for the dough cycle.
When I divided and shaped the dough for its final rise in the loaf pans, it smelled a little less strange. My hopes were rising...
... And so did the bread in the oven! I got a lot of oven spring from this batch; it would have easily made three loaves. When it came out, it had a faint remnant of that peculiar smell, but so far, no one has gotten sick from it. I guess it's okay. But, I learned my lesson: no [out-of-date] buttermilk for the soak.
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Just a thought!