Creamy Wild Blueberry Frozen Yogurt (With or Without an Ice Cream Maker)

Late summer in the northeast means wild blueberries! There are few pleasures in life as satisfying as picking wild blueberries. It takes time, but it forces you to slow down and appreciate ever little berry. I never get tired of fresh blueberries. I eat them every day while they're in season, usually with a generous amount of cream and maple syrup.

We're so lucky that our neighbors have a certified organic wild blueberry farm and each year, we order enough to freeze and last us all winter. Last year, we took part in Coastal Mountain Land Trusts annual free wild blueberry pick at Beech Hill Preserve and I made this blueberry lime layer cake. This year, I wanted to make frozen yogurt with our dairy farming friends rich and creamy Greek yogurt but there was one problem: I don't own an ice cream maker. So I looked up alternative ways to make frozen desserts without an ice cream maker and I stumbled upon this wonderful article on Serious Eats.

From my readings on the topic, I gathered there are a few things to increase your chances of creamy frozen success without the constant churn of an ice cream maker. Most importantly, there should be very little water content in your mixture in order to prevent ice crystals from forming. Ice crystals = rocky frozen desserts = the opposite of creamy and smooth. There are a few ways to keep ice crystals at bay: using a full-fat yogurt, adding sugar, freezing the mixture quickly, and using some kind of thickener. I experimented with many methods, using ground chia seeds as a thickener, various amounts of sugar or maple syrup, using cooked thawed berries, using fresh berries. In the end, the most simple recipe won the prize, with a few basic steps to achieve creamy goodness.

One trick I found especially useful was to strain plain whole milk yogurt overnight, which gives you labneh (basically a very thick yogurt). I learned about labneh from Tara OBrady's gorgeous new cookbook, Seven Spoons, and it's been quite revolutionary in my cooking. I've used labneh in so many different recipes, but in this one, it's especially crucial since it greatly minimizes the water content of the yogurt. Of course, if you use extra thick Greek yogurt, the added straining step is not necessary.

A word on choosing the right yogurt and blueberries. Using wild blueberries will yield a bright, beautiful purple whereas using high-bush blueberries will yield a grey-colored frozen yogurt, not a very appealing color. Both are delicious, but for the most gorgeous color, I strongly recommend wild blueberries. Either fresh of frozen will work beautifully though they need to be treated differently and I've outlined both versions in the recipe.

As for the yogurt, full-fat whole milk yogurt is necessary for this recipe to work properly. Don't even bother with low-fat, you will end up with a rock. The only way commercial low-fat yogurts work is that they pump them full of thickeners, stabilizers, and sugar. Besides, research shows that it's not fat that makes us unhealthy, it's too much sugar and chemical additives.

This creamy frozen yogurt is the real thing, just real yogurt, fruit, and a little sugar. I hope you love it as much as I do!