Crock Pot Milk Gingurt: Ginger Milk Curd Recipe

I call this ginger milk curd gingurt , borrowing part of the name from the bacteria milk curd, yogurt. Enzymes in ginger denature proteins in milk and form solid curd. It is sweet, silky smooth, slightly spicy, nutritious, delicious, and interesting with infusion of ginger's health benefits. Making it is a result of a challenge I live with for the past 11 months or so. I have a baby who has many food protein intolerances and allergies.

He was breastfed for 2 months, by then he developed food protein induced proctitis, not absorbing nutrients from milk. Doctors declared it'd be impossible to figure out his offending foods considering I already tried elimination of all 8 common food allergens from my diet, suggested him be weaned from breastmilk completely, prescribed complete amino acid based formula. It's ironic to stop breastmilk because of food allergies since breastmilk is said to prevent food allergies. I refused to give up hope. At that time there was a slight possibility of him having another disease which breast milk would be crucial to his recovery. I decided to pump till we figured out his food allergies and/or cleared of the major disease. That's 4 months for the former and 9 months for the later.

You see my fridge frozen compartment was soon packed with frozen breastmilk. I tried to "sell" my milk to my daughter by implying that I'm "hurt" that she doesn't help me, but willingly drinks cow's milk whom she doesn't know, who doesn't talk or take shower, probably has flies on its breasts. She started to drink my milk instead of cow's milk but commented "mommy, no offense but if you can make it into yogurt or something, it'll be great." There she got it - ginger milk curd. Both cow's milk and breast milk gingurt were made in this instructables.

Kudos to you if I have't lost you over this long and weird story. You must really want to know how to make it. No further delay, here is what were used:

1 cup milk (per serving)

White Sugar (5-10% for cow's milk depending on your taste , 0-5% for breast milk since it's already sweet)

Fresh ginger root (2-5% ginger juice, up to 7% if the root is young)

1tsp Fruit pectin (and 2tsp calcium water you'll make with calcium powder that came with it)

Crock pot

Juicer

Thermometer

Mason jar (with wide opening, 2 cup capacity recommended, I upcycled two dip jars)

Stick blender

Below are 1-2-3 steps to make it:

Plug crock pot to electricity and place setting on "keep warm" hours before.

Pour 1 cup water into the jar to measure how deep the water bath needs to be.

Fill your crock pot with water 0.5-1 inch taller than the water level in the jar. Transfer the water to a stove top pot and heating it to 140F (60C, the closer to this temperature the better, enzymes in ginger are at optimal activity at this temperature). Transfer the water back to the crock pot and keep the lid on to maintain the temperature.

You might need to do some experiment with your brand of crock pot to find out how to maintain a temperature as close as possible to 140F(60C) beforehand. Or better, try using Dorkfood Sous-Vide Temperature Controller (DSV) which I don't have. Help me please by voting!

Follow the fruit pectin's instruction to make the calcium water, add 2tsp of it in each jar.

Add 1 cup milk in each jar.

Place it in a stove top pot with water at the level of the milk in the jar, heat it to 194F (90C).

Add 1tsp pectin.

Add the sugar.

Use a stick blender to blender it till fruit pectin is dissolved (took only a few seconds).

Let the mixture cool to 140F (60C).

Wash, peel, and wash again the ginger root, cut it to smaller pieces.

Juice the ginger.

Add the juice to the milk, stir it with a wood chop stick.

Place the milk jar in the crock pot water bath overnight, partially cover the lid to maintain the temperature.

It's already done! You can go to bed now, when you wake, you shall have ginger milk curd!

To set it firmer, remove it from water bath, let it cool and place it in fridge to chill.

Serve it hot right after incubation or cold after chilling, alone or top with your favorite granola or anything that pairs well with yogurt.

If you are on the go, place the lid on, take a spoon, it's a balanced meal in a jar. How convenient!

Or plate it with your favorite granola or anything that pairs well with yogurt, sit at your table and enjoy. How fancy!

This instructable will be entered into a few contests. If you like it, please click on the orange vote button above. I will greatly appreciate your vote, especially for the crock pot contest, thanks. If I won, the Dorkfood Sous-Vide Temperature Controller will enable me to cook up more recipes that require precise temperatures.

Taste evaluation: Both cow milk and breast milk gingurt taste sweet, silky smooth, and slightly spicy with breast milk gingurt having much stronger aroma. Don't blame the cow. Cow's milk is made for baby cow.

I found breast milk curd always softer than cow milk curd. Breast milk curd has light golden color while cow milk curd is white.

Unlike yogurt, water doesn't separate in ginger milk curd, making it a really safe meal to bring on the go.

About the recipe: I didn't invent the idea. If you search the Internet, people have been using ginger juice to make the milk curd as a dessert. But they all look very soft, some even runny. Mine is done to science so it is quite firm, can withstand me scraping it out of the jar. I first made it with cow milk of course in a food processing class decades ago when I was in China. I remembered how good it tasted and specifically kept the class notes. I developed this recipe based on hand written class notes decades ago.

I wish to thank Instructables and other contributors for making this a great place to share and show. Thanks for stopping by and have a safe and warm winter!