Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

Friends, I have had a Blueberry Frozen Yogurt epiphany.

I’ve made ice cream many, many times but never frozen yogurt. WHY?????

It’s so good! It’s so easy! And, because it doesn’t have eggs like custard based ice cream, I can eat it and not get a stomach ache. Win – Win.

Blueberries are in season, fresh and lovely and likely on sale at your store, but you could also make this quite nicely with frozen berries.

Here’s what you need:

Whole Milk Plain Yogurt, Blueberries, Sugar, Lemon, Vanilla, and Kirsch* (optional but recommended)

Click here for a Blueberry Frozen Yogurt Shopping List

For the best light and airy frozen yogurt, you should use an electric ice cream maker.

Mine is a Cuisinart Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker that has a bowl that you freeze first. Pour in the ice cream or yogurt mixture and flip a switch. In 25 minutes you have soft serve and after a bit of time in the freezer, regular scoop-able ice cream.

I get a bit nostalgic for the days of the big old hand crank ice cream maker but love the fact that this is small (makes about 1-1½ quarts) and quick.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can still make this yogurt. Simply follow all the steps but instead of using the machine, pour your yogurt mixture into a loaf pan or plastic container. Freeze for at least 1½ hours. It won’t be as fluffy as the churned variety, but you’ll still get all the flavors.

Another benefit of making frozen yogurt (aside from the fact that it is healthier and lower in fat than ice cream) is that nothing has to cook. It only takes minutes in the blender.

Place 3 cups of blueberries (that’s about 2 pints), ¾ cup sugar, and 1½ cups plain whole milk yogurt in a blender.

My friend Wes gave me this new handy measuring gadget for sticky or hard to measure ingredients.

Fill it up to the line you want, then it pushes out from the bottom. Very slick.

Give the blueberry yogurt mixture a whirl in the blender to mix thoroughly.

Pour the mixture into a large strainer and use a spatula or spoon to work it though the mesh and into a bowl.

You might be tempted to skip this step but I will caution you that you don’t realize how gritty blueberries are until you’ve had unstrained blueberry ice cream.

Work through all of the blueberry mixture until you have mostly dry blueberry pulp remaining in the strainer.

*Add 1 teaspoon of kirsch (also called Kirschwasser) to the strained mixture.

Kirsch is a cherry liquor that, because of it’s alcohol content, keeps the yogurt from freezing rock solid.

You could skip this step if you are worried about the alcohol, but it really did make a difference in the final texture of the frozen yogurt.

If you don’t want to commit to buying a big bottle of kirsch, look for one of those little airline sized bottles.

Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon (2 teaspoons) and add 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Now for the hard part. Waiting.

Place the bowl of blueberry yogurt mixture in the refrigerator and chill thoroughly for 1 hour.

When you are ready to churn, fill your frozen ice cream maker insert and let ‘er rip.

After about 25 minutes, I had creamy, light, blueberry soft serve.

VERY tempting to eat all of this with a spoon right out of the ice cream machine.

For firmer, scoop-able frozen yogurt, transfer the soft serve to a freezer container and freeze for 30-90 minutes or even overnight.

Dish it up and go!

This is light, tangy and delicious.

Summer is going fast (unless you live in Florida…where we have at least 3 more months of this ridiculous weather) so you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to bust a move on some blueberry yogurt ASAP.

Here’s the recipe:  Adapted from David Lebovitz – The Perfect Scoop

Blueberry Frozen Yogurt