Frozen Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts

Creamy frozen yogurt made with Greek-style yogurt, sweetened with honey and topped with toasted walnuts.

The Greek dessert — yogurt, honey and nuts — in frozen form. Greek-style yogurt is strained, with less water and more fat, so the frozen yogurt is fuller and less icy. Honey softens it: it contains fructose and glucose, which lower the freezing point more than sugar does. Its flavour stays prominent, so choose a honey you like.

Type: Frozen yogurt · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 80 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 50 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 30 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 25 g skimmed milk powder
  • 1.5 g locust bean gum (carob gum, E410)
  • 90 g honey (added only once the syrup is lukewarm)
  • 500 g Greek-style yogurt 10 %
  • 200 g plain yogurt 3 %
  • 60 g walnuts (for topping or folding in at the end, dry-toasted)
  • 30 g honey (for topping or folding in at the end, for drizzling)

Making the mix

  1. In a small pan, mix the dry ingredients: sugar, dextrose, milk powder and locust bean gum (carob gum, E410) — mixed with the sugar, the gum won’t form lumps.
  2. Stir in the milk (and the glucose syrup, if the recipe has it) and heat to 85 °C, just below boiling, stirring constantly. Hold it there for two minutes so the gum hydrates.
  3. Take the syrup off the heat and let it cool to lukewarm (about 40 °C), then stir in the honey — too much heat would rob it of its aroma.
  4. Cool the syrup in a bowl of iced water, then in the fridge.
  5. Whisk the cold syrup with both yogurts until smooth. Don’t heat the yogurt, or the live cultures would die.
  6. Dry-toast the walnuts in a frying pan until fragrant, let them cool and chop roughly.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes in advance so the bowl pre-chills.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix (no higher than the fill line) and churn for 25–35 minutes until it has the consistency of a thick cream.
  3. You can serve it soft straight away, like soft-serve. For scoops, transfer it to a chilled container, cover with cling film and leave to harden in the freezer.

Total time: 3 h 55 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours in advance. Take it out just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the thoroughly chilled mix — filling the bowl no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes until the mix thickens. Going on longer is pointless — the bowl has already warmed up.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Frozen yogurt has less fat than cream ice cream, so it thickens more slowly in a freezer bowl. The mix must be really cold (5 °C or below), otherwise it stays runny.

Total time: 4 h 20 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Pour the chilled mix into the CREAMi tub up to the MAX line (one or two tubs, depending on their size), put the lid on and freeze level for 24 hours.
  2. Put the tub in the machine and run the Frozen Yogurt (if your model doesn’t have it, Lite Ice Cream) program.
  3. If the result is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin — with a very cold freezer even twice (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk or yogurt first).

Programme: Frozen Yogurt (if your model doesn’t have it, Lite Ice Cream)

Total time: 26 h

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
5 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
1 h
Churning
30 min
Hardening in the freezer
1 h 30 min
Total time
3 h 55 min

Serving and storage

In bowls, topped with a spoonful of walnuts and a thin drizzle of honey. A fresh fig or apricot goes well too.

In a sealed container, 5 days. Store the nuts separately — in the frozen yogurt they go soft.

Tips

  • Don’t give honey to children under 1 year — it can contain spores of the bacterium that causes infant botulism. For young children, replace it with the same amount of sugar.
  • Forest (honeydew) or chestnut honey gives a strong, slightly bitter flavour; acacia honey is mild.
  • Instead of walnuts, try pistachios or toasted flaked almonds.

Why it works

Honey is roughly 80 % sugar, mostly fructose and glucose. These have a higher anti-freezing power than sucrose, so honey softens ice cream more than the same amount of sugar — which is why the recipe combines it with sugar, so that the frozen yogurt doesn’t turn gooey. The fat from the Greek-style yogurt (about 6 % of the mix) gives a creaminess that plain yogurt lacks.

Sources