Even easier home made yogurt

Since moving to Scotland, I have two new habits. One is Yeo Valley Organic plain yogurt. The other is the charity shop down the road. The yogurt at least is shared by my children, but I am alone when it comes to buying every dogeared cookbook and enamel bowl in sight.

A few weeks ago I paid the princely sum of GBP 2 for an old fashioned Thermos, the kind with glass inside and a cork stopper. It is gorgeous, huge and impractical, and I love it.

I had assumed it would just sit grandly in my cupboard, useless and remote, but actually, it´s the perfect tool to make yogurt.

Before, I used a glass jar inside a pot of hot water inside a jumper that spent the night next to a heater. Which means that I didn´t really use that method much, and certainly not when I fell into the clutches of the Yeo Valley stuff.

But now? I simply heat milk, dip my finger in it, count, and if I can hold it for ten seconds but no more, then I pour it into the thermos. Adding half a cup of yogurt is all that remains to be done. You can add some powdered milk, they say, to make it set even better, but frankly, that´s a step too far.

Leave it inside the thermos for eight hours or so, and there you have it: yogurt.

The only problem? It´s so fresh that it tastes almost too real, cheesy and wild. My children refuse it point blank, so I´m alone in this addiction too.