From my friend Mel many years ago; she used to blog regularly but it’s gone patchy…

Requirements:

• Saucepan
• Enough milk to fit in your thermos flask without overflowing, and not so much that you won’t be able to consume the resulting yoghurt; if you use 1l of milk you will get 1l of yoghourt. I use semi-skim, but they all seem to work.
• Yoghurt starter, eg: about 1 tbsp of live organic plain yoghurt remaining at the bottom of your last tub
• Large camping thermos flask that you’ve otherwise forgotten about in the kitchen cupboard; I have a stainless one with a seamless interior which is about perfect.
• Thermometer (optional but useful)

Process:

• Dilute the starter in 2 tbsp of milk and leave to stand at room temperature
• Heat remaining milk in pan, bring to simmer and then turn off heat
• Leave to cool for nearly an hour; if you have a thermometer then 40C is the target termperature that I use; basically we’re looking for blood-temperature, so it should be hot but not painfully so.
• Mix starter into the 40C-warm milk.
• Decant into thermos flask and leave overnight.
• Done.
• If it fails, reboil and try again the next day.
• If you want it thicker, drain through some clean washed muslin and then leave to hang; hang longer to make Labneh.