MAKING THE MOST OF IT
We set the bar high with this recipe: We wanted a naturally sweetened, pleasantly tart vanilla frozen yogurt with the creamy, smooth texture of premium ice cream. We started with plain whole-milk yogurt; not wanting to mask the yogurt’s tangy flavor, we immediately ruled out the additional dairy we saw in some other recipes. Next, we needed to choose a natural sweetener that wouldn’t disrupt the clean flavor of the yogurt. Sucanat, coconut sugar, and honey proved to be overpowering, but maple syrup worked perfectly: It offered just the right amount of rounded sweetness without being distracting.
To develop distinct, nuanced vanilla flavor, we used a whole vanilla bean along with a small amount of extract.
With the yogurt’s flavor down, we turned our attention to fine-tuning the texture. Usually, sugar helps to prevent ice crystals from forming in ice cream and frozen yogurt, but with the small amount we were using we needed to find a different way to avoid an icy texture.
We wondered if the water in the yogurt was to blame. Draining the yogurt overnight and eliminating a measured amount of liquid resulted in a much better final texture, but the ultrasmooth creaminess we coveted was still proving elusive. We knew that store-bought frozen yogurts often rely on additives and stabilizers to achieve a smoother texture, and we wondered if we could recreate the effect at home by using gelatin.
We tested yogurts made with various amounts of gelatin (blooming it in the strained yogurt liquid kept our recipe streamlined), and landed on 1 teaspoon. Finally, we prevented large ice crystals from forming by allowing the frozen yogurt base to cool to 40 F or lower before churning.
You can increase the vanilla extract to 1 tablespoon if you don’t have a vanilla bean, though the flavor will be duller.
We prefer to use whole-milk yogurt in this recipe; the frozen yogurt will be less creamy if you substitute low-fat yogurt.
For more recipes, cooking tips and ingredient and product reviews, visit https://www.americastestkitch en.com. Find more recipes like Vanilla Frozen Yogurt in “Naturally Sweet.”
America’s Test Kitchen provided this article to The Associated Press.