Freeze, froze, frozen...

...Yoghurt

Yoghurt is such a healthy stuff. The live cultures in it help, not only me with my lactose-intolerance, to digest milk sugar. It is refreshing und you can use it in savoury dishes as well as a companion for them. You can mix drinks with em like the Indian lassi. Cakes and that kind of stuff baked with yoghurt has a light texture, are moist and fresh. You can use it mixed with aromatic ingredients as a cake topping. Or eat it just plain, with a fruit juice, sugar, syrup, like maple syrup, with fruits and so on. So many possibilities and for sure much more I don't even know.
I love ice-cream, home-made gelato. That creamy, cold, sweat delicacies. Either with flavours like cinnamon, lavender, vanilla, coconut or with white chocolate, figs, passionfruit, other fruits, or any other ingredient. I still have to try to make a pandan ice-cream and one with black sesame seeds. I've collected recipes for olive oil-ice cream, fresh cheese-ice cream, and many other variations.... The creamier they are the more I like them. More whipping cream than milk and maybe additionaly butter or even one more egg yolk. Mmmmmhhhhhhhhhh yummi!
But there is a healthier version of an ice-cream as delicious as the creamiest one. Made with milk which is fermented with bacterias. Frozen yoghurt. I've made already one yoghurt ice-cream version with chocolate dulce de leche. But as you can eat yoghurt plain you can churn yoghurt in an ice cream maker without any additions. Some of the recipes for frozen yoghurt I've seen calling for gelatine, most of them for at least sugar. Be aware that yoghurt needs longer to freeze. It's boiling/freezing point lies higher/lower than that of regular milk or cream. But you don't need a double boiler, no bain marie, no eggs, no crème pâtissiére, non of that basic custard techniques; Just flavour and thicken if you want and churn.
I decided to create a version with honey, maple sugar and strawberries. Okay and I have to confess that I couldn't resist the temptation of cream. The crown of my yoghurt-strawberry is a huge dollop of whipped cream.

So you can call my creation for about 5 persons:

Health-cup with a sinful finish

Ingredients for the yoghurt-strawberry ice-cream:

1 kggreek style yoghurt, or 1,2 kg natural plain yoghurt packed in a muslin/cheesecloth to get rid of some of it's water content
3 Tbspthyme honey or maple syrup

300 gstrawberries, washed, drained, and trimmed
4 Tbsvanilla sugar


Preparation:

Mix the chilled yoghurt with the honey and churn in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.
Blend the strawberries with the flavoured sugar. Devide the mixture into onethird and twothird. When the yoghurt ice-cream starts to freeze pour in 1/3 of the strawberry sauce. Churn a few more rounds pour the ice-cream in a suitable box with lid and freeze.
In a heavy bottomed saucepan simmer the 2/3 of the strawberry sauce over low heat, stirring occasionally until reduced to a thick paste.
Stir half of the strawberry paste into the almost frozen yoghurt-mixture in the manner you'll do with a swirl cake. Freeze again until set.










Ingredients for the yoghurt with strawberries:

1 kggreek style or natural plain yoghurt
500 gstrawberries, washed, drained, trimmed, and cut in cubes or slices

200 mlheavy/whippening cream
2 Tbspvanilla sugar, or more to your taste, or use maple syrup or the thyme honey instead - it's up to you

4 Tbspmaple sugar (crystalized maple syrup by cooking maple syrup to a hard, crystalized rock candy) or sugar chrystals, alternatevly maple syrup or thyme honey










Final preparation:

Mix the strawberry slices/cubes into the yoghurt.
Pour about 1-2 cups of the strawberry-yoghurt into a bowl. Put 2 - 3 scoops of the yoghurt-strawberry ice-cream in it. Pour some of the remaining half of the strawberry paste over the ice. Top with a dollop whipped cream. And sprinkle some maple sugar over the dessert. Indulge.





I'm already thinking about making lemon curd and add this and maybe some caramelizised lemon wedges and lemon zests to yoghurt and yoghurt ice-cream....