These thick, creamy yoghurts are so delicious you’d be forgiven for thinking they contained much more luxurious ingredients. Peach and raspberry are my family’s favourite variations, but you can make them in a wide range of flavours. They are perfect for serving to people who ‘don’t like yoghurt’ or visiting children who are used to commercial fromage frais.
As with most of my flavoured yoghurt recipes, this recipe ensures you are not left without a natural starter yoghurt for your next batch of yoghurts.
This recipe makes 4-5 delicious, thick fruit yoghurts and one natural yoghurt starter for your next batch of yoghurts. You will also have enough leftover whey for two batches of fruit muffins!
The Fruit Syrup
The fruit flavour of these yoghurts comes simply from a fruit syrup – the kind you add to water to make drinks.
Choice is limited at our supermarket but I really like this Lowicz fruit syrup which is free of glucose-fructose syrup and sweetners. My supermarket only has it in raspberry or raspberry and lemon, both of which make lovely yoghurts. Growing up, we always used Tessiere syrups which come in a bamboozling array of flavours ensuring yoghurt-making was never boring. Moulin de Valdonne are also great. Our family favourite flavours for this recipe are peach and raspberry.
These types of syrups each come with a recommended dilution level when made into drinks – 1 to 9 for Lowicz, 1 to 7 for Tessiere, for example. This means you may need to experiment a little with your chosen syrup brand to find the amount of syrup you need for the strength of flavour and sweetness you prefer.
Thick Fruit Yoghurts Recipe
Jump to the brief, printable recipeEmpty your starter yoghurt into a large bowl or jug. 120-150g of natural yoghurt is enough to culture this recipe. Add 1 litre of whole UHT milk to the yoghurt, starting with just a little, and stir really well.
Remember you can’t use fresh milk to make yoghurts like this. For all my tips on the basics of yoghurt-making, please see my core natural yoghurt recipe.
Ladle out one pot of the plain yoghurt mixture, which will be your starter for a future batch of yoghurts.
To the remaining yoghurt mixture, add 100g of your chosen fruit syrup (or to taste) and 60g of white sugar.
Stir the mixture really well until all the sugar has dissolved.
Ladle or pour the flavoured yoghurt mixture into a 1-litre tub suitable for your yoghurt maker. If you have one, this should have the strainer fitted.
Place the yoghurt in your yoghurt maker, following the manufacturer’s instructions.
Set the fermentation time for 10 hours.
At the end of the fermentation time, cool the yogurts on the kitchen side for half an hour or so. You can now cover and refrigerate the natural starter yoghurt.
If your tub containing the fruit-flavoured mixture is fitted with a strainer, you now set it in the straining position (left). If you don’t have a purpose-built strainer, then place a sieve over a bowl, line it with cheesecloth and gently spoon your yoghurt into that (right). Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Next Morning
In the morning, you should have around 530g of yoghurt and around 575ml of whey. See my post on what to do with your leftover whey. You can see in the following photo how the level of the yoghurt has dropped. The gorgeously-pink whey has gathered in the bottom of the tub.
Transfer the strained fruit yoghurt into a small bowl. You can see in this photo how thick the yoghurt now is:
Stir the yoghurt gently, and then portion it out into 4 or 5 jars, small glasses or serving dishes. Cover and refrigerate until serving.
Serving
When it comes to serving your thick fruit yoghurts, they are delicious just as they are, but you can also serve them topped with fresh, frozen or tinned fruit, or a fruit purée.
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Thick Fruit Yoghurt Printable Recipe
Extra-Special Thick Fruit Yoghurts
Equipment
- yoghurt maker
- yoghurt-making tub with strainer or
- sieve and cheesecloth
Ingredients
- 120-150 g full-fat natural yoghurt
- 1 litre whole UHT milk (see Notes)
- 100 g fruit syrup
- 60 g white sugar
Instructions
Day One (Morning)
- Empty your starter yoghurt into a large bowl or jug.
- Add the milk to the yoghurt, starting with just a little, and stir really well.
- Ladle out one pot of the plain yoghurt mixture, which will be a starter for a future batch of yoghurts.
- To the remaining yoghurt mixture, add the fruit syrup and sugar.
- Stir the mixture really well until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Ladle or pour the flavoured yoghurt mixture into a 1-litre tub suitable for your yoghurt maker.
- Place the yoghurt in your yoghurt maker, following the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Set the fermentation time for 10 hours.
Day One (Evening)
- At the end of the fermentation time, cool the yoghurts on the kitchen side for half an hour.
- Cover and refrigerate the natural starter yoghurt.
- Strain the fruit-flavoured yoghurt by setting your tub in the straining position or by gently spooning the yoghurt into a cheesecloth-lined sieve over a bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Day Two (Morning)
- Transfer the thickened fruit yoghurt into a small bowl.
- Stir the yoghurt gently, and then distrubute it between 4 or 5 small glasses or serving dishes.
- Cover and refrigerate until serving.
Notes
If you’d make these yoghurts I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
If you like these yoghurts, take a look at my extra-special Black Cherry Yoghurts recipe, which is a variation on this one. For a more economical fruit yoghurt recipe, check out my Every-Day Fruit Yoghurt recipe.
Don’t forget to make some delicious muffins with your leftover whey!
Click here to see all my family recipes.