Homemade Frozen Yogurt

Bring the yogurt shop to your home with homemade frozen yogurt or “froyo” as the cool kids are calling it! Learn how to make the classic “tart” flavor or change out the flavor of yogurt used to make your favorite flavor! Don’t forget the toppings, of course!

WARNING: This post contains numerous pop culture sayings and abbreviations. You may find it obnoxious. But I hope you still love me. Consider yourself warned! 

I totes love pop culture abbreviations and acronyms. Well certain ones. The other ones make me roll my eyes (just in my mind, not in real life. I’m not THAT rude).

I know. Pop culture slang can be really obnoxious. I get it. But I just can’t help it.  I will forever and always say “oh em gee” in slow mo when I am surprised by something. If you make me laugh in a text you most certainly will get a “lol” reply and it should be read as “laaaaawl!!!” with lots of exclamations in your mind.

And you CANNOT tell me that it’s not really satisfying to yell “YOLO” when you are about to do something exciting or a little naughty… RIGHT?! And “froyo” is equally as fun to say!  BUT you will never ever hear me say smh, fml, lmfao, gtfo or any of the like. I have to draw the line somewhere. See the line?

Ok. Let’s talk about froyo. It is such a thing. A thing taking that has been taking over everywhere. Multiple frozen yogurt shops in every town. What is this, 1980?  I wonder how long the craze will last this time? I hope forever and ever, because I’m totes (how much am I annoying you with that?) on the froyo bandwagaon!

Mr. BB and I found an awesome yogurt shop near our house called Happily Ever After. It is in tourist central but the shop is adorable and movie themed and their yogurt is maybe the best I’ve had yet. They have lots of other desserts you can get too, but so far I haven’t moved past the yogurt yet.

Sometimes we have to make a stop on our walk home from work and just get froyo for dinner. It’s yogurt, so it’s like kinda healthy. Right?

But I was thinking the other day that making my own frozen yogurt has got to be as simple as that right? Freeze + Yogurt = frozen yogurt? I mean really it is. I wanted to make the classic “tart” flavor because it is my favorite and goes with any topping. If you aren’t familiar with “tart” flavor, think an only slightly sweet and super tart/tangy yogurt flavor. No vanilla or other flavorings.

So I mixed together plain greek yogurt with plain regular yogurt. Greek yogurt has a much tangier flavor than regular yogurt and has been strained, making it much thicker. I wanted to cut it with regular yogurt so it was lighter in texture. I still wasn’t completely happy with how tangy it was, so I added in a little lemon juice to give it the super tart flavor I love. And it is awesome!

Literally that easy. Yogurt + sugar + lemon juice + ice cream freezer = homemade tart froyo, peeps! Holla!

Almost every time I go into a yogurt shop and they offer me a teeny tiny little cup for a sample I take it, knowing full well that I am still going to get tart. I taste something and think, “Eh, it’s good. But not as good as tart.” But at our new favorite place they have a strawberry flavor that is super duper tart and intensely strawberry flavored and amazing!

It is the only place that I get a different flavor. So I wanted to try and recreate that flavor too. Yeah sure, I could have just made it with strawberry yogurt and called it a day. But I don’t think it would have lived up to my expectations.

I tried to think about how I can infuse a really concentrated strawberry flavor and THEN I remembered that I had freeze dried strawberries from Trader Joe’s. So I just ground them up in my food processor and mixed them in with another batch of the yogurt. It worked. Super intensely strawberry but the tangy tart flavor isn’t diluted at all.

And of course we had to have toppings for this homemade yogurt shop experience! We went with stuff we already had around which includes most of our favorites.

For me: fresh fruit (blackberries & cherries), toasted coconut, smoked almonds, graham cracker crumbs, and rainbow sprinkles. For Mr. BB: chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles (or chocolate “jimmies,” as they call them here in Philly) and peanut butter cups. Basically anything chocolate is what he goes for.

Could we demonstrate gender stereotypes anymore with those his and her creations. I posted this pic on instagram the other day. Can you guess who’s is who’s?

Think of this yogurt recipe as a guideline. If you love other flavors, then swap them out for your favorite yogurt flavor! We are really loving having this in our freezer. I do have to say that it is a bit different than what you get in the yogurt shop.

Their machines incorporate a good amount of air into their product. So this homemade stuff will be creamier and just a bit yogurtier (that is def a word). But still totally awesome and I think I like it more! It just tastes fresh.

No go make some froyo! Because, well… YOLO! (I’m such a geek)