Frozen Homemade Yogurt with Peanut Butter Cookie

We love ice cream but it's just too much fat for our middle age diets.  I have tried using commercial yogurts for frozen yogurt but they always leave me missing something, not sure what but they don't have it.  Homemade yogurt has it. Homemade plain yogurt tastes good by itself, it doesn't need sugar or flavoring to be palatable.  It's a lot easier to get a good result when I start with ingredients that taste good. 

To make yogurt I use a double boiler to heat the milk to 185ºF then quickly cool it in cold water to 114ºF, add a spoonful of previous batch and put it in the yogurt maker overnight. I have a Yolife yogurt maker with a tall lid so I can use 1L mason jars instead of those stupid baby food jars. Conceivably I could make 4L of yogurt at once with this machine, should I ever have the need. I prep the jar by putting half a cup of water and putting it in the microwave on high for 2 minutes. Empty the water and the jar is preheated and ready to go.

I made frozen yogurt once before with homemade yogurt but it was grainy.  To see if I could prevent the ice crystals I used a packet of gelatin in 1/4 cup milk, stir to dissolve then add 1/4 cup boiling water. Stir till gelatin is dissolved.  Fill with milk to 1 cup, add 2 cups yogurt, 1 cup sugar, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla and blend then churn. The smooth, creamy result can be seen in the photo above. Delicious success!

Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

This is the recipe from Joy of Cooking, which I highly recommend as a first cookbook. Preheat oven to  375ºF. Cream the butter, which means beat it till it's soft (melting or warming it won't work).  Add small amounts of brown sugar and cream. Continue till all sugar is creamed.  Add egg, peanut butter, vanilla and beat in.  Add flour, salt, baking soda and mix. Drop 24 cookies onto 2 cookie sheets and bakc for 15 minutes or till some edges are very brown. Normally peanut butter cookie dough is pressed with a fork to give the characteristic look.  I forgot to do it this time but the cookies tasted just fine. So go ahead, rebel, make peanut butter cookies with smooth tops!

The best thing about this dessert is that it has no fructose which is sugar that doesn't register with the brain so you want to keep eating it.  Very bad for one. The frozen yogurt has an almost lemony tang which the cookie cuts the acid perfectly.  If the grand kids come over, add strawberry jam over their yogurt for extra sweet that children like.