Strawberry Yogurt Taffy

My kids love this recipe because to them, it's candy. To me, it's the joy of giving them a treat, minus the tense pause when mom reads the label and gives the thumbs up or thumbs down. It's also the only way I know to take raw milk with me on an airplane! Being able to bring decent food for my family when we travel is really important to me, so this recipe is a go-to for any trip.

This recipe is the healthiest with fresh milk that you culture yourself - but if you can't get raw milk, any whole milk organic yogurt can be substituted. I'm not going to go through the process of making raw milk yogurt in this post, it's pretty simple - a jar, some starter yogurt and a source of warmth are all you need, no fancy yogurt-maker required. There are a lot of ways to do it, if you need help feel free to ask - I can always put up a post on making yogurt with raw milk later.

For the yogurt taffy, mix your plain raw yogurt with a jam or fruit sauce of your choice - we used an organic strawberry this time but the kids also like peach. Use a little less than you would if you were going to eat it out of the bowl, the dehydration concentrates the sweetness.



Spread the mixture out on parchment paper cut to fit your dehydrator. Keep it thick enough that there are no thin areas where the paper shows through.







I set my dehydrator at about 120F for this batch of thick yogurt, but for thinner yogurt, 95F has worked fine. If it's important to you that the milk remain raw, use thinner (undrained) yogurt and keep the temp low. When it is all "leathery" and will peel smoothly off the paper, it is done. I like to roll the paper & yogurt up together and cut with scissors into segments. Then the kids get to peel strips off just like the commercial fruit roll-ups.



These yogurt taffy "roll-ups" were a great travel snack during our trip to the midwest to visit family. They survived well in both the carry-on and the big suitcase we entrusted to the airline, I made enough for the whole trip and a few even made it home. They are excellent for including in my second grader's lunchbox too! I got four sandwich-baggies full of roll-ups from two quarts of yogurt. In such a concentrated state, the yogurt is more filling than typical candy and I have never had my kids ask for more than two. If you make this let me know how it turned out, and I'd be happy to help if you have any questions about the process.