Sweet Tooth

This one was part inspired be Aki and Alex's malted yoghurt, and part by watching another chef drain ricotta for a dish in the same way traditional labna (Middle Eastern yoghurt cheese) is made.



I thought about it for a week or so and remembered making a labna at one of my previous jobs. It’s a simple process where by you take yoghurt, season and add spices then you place it in a cheese cloth and hang to expel as much liquid as possible over a 5-7 day period. After this time you roll the now thicker yoghurt into small balls and preserve in olive oil with herbs.

I played around with different flavours in the yoghurt, first starting with malt powder and sugar, the flavour just wasn't right so after a few attempts I tried a bit of honey and the flavours seemed to mesh well so the waiting game started while the liquid drained from the mix.

5 Days later Labna in hand I had some strawberry juice on hand that I was playing around with a few days earlier and some chocolate chip cookies from my personal stash and played around until I was happy with the results.