Did you know that today is National Frozen Yogurt Day? It is! I didn’t know that it had it’s own day, yet here I am devouring a bowl of Chocolate Kahlua Frozen Yogurt that I made last night just to celebrate. I love frozen yogurt, and not because it is supposed to be healthier than ice cream (it isn’t) but because it’s just good. I remember that there used to be a TCBY chain in Dayton and I went there all the time, but it didn’t last and I haven’t had frozen yogurt in quite some time. Then I was on Google and saw that there is a list of food days and thought, why not? This is a recipe that I found on the internet, but made some changes because I’m a rebel and can’t follow directions. It’s worked out pretty well for me so far, so why mess with a good thing, right? I read that adding a little alcohol would help to reduce the ice crystals in it, and since I had a bottle of Kahlua, it gave me such great ideas! Behold! 
Chocolatey, smooth and so creamy……hmmm. I have decided that I need a new ice cream maker, so I got on Amazon and added the Cuisinart ICE-21 Frozen Yogurt-Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker to my store. It will be mine, oh yes. I’ve got big plans for it, so stay tuned. So there are a few tricks to successfully making frozen yogurt, there’s always a catch, isn’t there?
First, you have to drain the liquid from your yogurt. If you have some cheesecloth, just lay it in a colander, pour your yogurt into it and put the whole thing into a bowl to catch the liquid. If you don’t have any cheesecloth, I used coffee filters and it worked great. Refrigerate the whole thing for 5 hours. One recipe I saw said 4, but 5 worked much better and got most of the liquid out. It kind of looked like thick pudding after.
Second, remove the yogurt from your straining setup and mix with the remaining ingredients, then refrigerate for about 2 hours. This did make a difference, although I am not sure if the ingredients were the reason or not, but you don’t want to skip this step.
Third, if you have any liqueur, use it. I read on more than one internet post that it helps to keep the ice crystals from getting huge and it made a difference after it was frozen. It wasn’t rock hard at all, and it rolled up nicely with my ice cream scoop.
After chilling for 2 hours, get your ice cream maker ready and pour it in and let it do it’s thing for 30 minutes. Since I don’t have the Cuisinart mentioned above yet, I used my old ice cream maker that uses crushed ice and salt so it took 30 minutes and it produced the creamiest, smoothest frozen yogurt and I was totally impressed and will definitely make again.
Put it into the freezer after you make it for at least an hour or so before you eat it. While it comes out of the machine nice and creamy, it is a little softer than I would have preferred, and about an hour and a half in the freezer fixed that. The trick is to lay a piece of wax paper on top and then cover in plastic wrap. It was perfect.
After my new maker gets here, I am going to keep going until I develop the best frozen yogurt recipes I can find, because I am craving strawberry now and think that I might try my hand at some mint chocolate chip. Yeeeeesssss.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 1 32-ounce container Vanilla greek yogurt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup half and half
- 3 tablespoons Kahlua
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Strain the yogurt for at least 5 hours in the refrigerator using cheesecloth or a coffee filter in a strainer over a bowl
- Whisk together sugar, cocoa and salt and add to milk
- Add yogurt and blend until smooth - I used my KitchenAid
- Cover and refrigerate 2 hours
- Add to our ice cream make and follow manufacturer's instructions
- Place in a freezer safe bowl
- Press waxed paper onto yogurt and cover bowl with plastic wrap
- Freeze for 2 hours
- Enjoy
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