Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Maker Review & Giveaway

By Opinion Queen

As I listed the foods that I eat every day to my nutritionist a month ago, I could not help but be proud of what I thought was a healthy diet. One of the first things that the nutritionist picked up on was that I was eating lots of yogurt, which is a good thing, but I was eating the wrong kind of yogurt. She told me to start buying yogurt with at most 6 grams of sugar per serving, but ideally it should have only 3 grams of sugar or less per serving. So off I went to the grocery store on a quest to find organic yogurt with less sugar (I hate the idea of non-organic dairy products from cows that are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics). How can it be that every yogurt and kefir (other than plain or diet flavors) has 20 grams of sugar or more? That is far higher than what my nutritionist was recommending. So I decided that maybe I would give my yogurt habit a rest for a while. A couple of weeks later, the fabulous people at Cuisipro offered to let me review the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker and to give another one away to one of my readers. And it finally struck me – why not make your own yogurt and have 100% control over all of the ingredients that are used! Even if you are not a yogurt lover, you should definitely also read my Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Cheese Maker Review and enter that giveaway as well, because both the yogurt maker and the yogurt cheese maker work together so beautifully.

The Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker comes with 8 reusable yogurt cups, a cooking base, and a thermometer that is used in the process of making yogurt. The only other ingredients that you need are milk and a starter. The instruction book suggests adding instant skim milk powder into your cold milk before starting the process if you use low-fat milk (otherwise your yogurt can come out too thin), but I used a mixture of whole milk and 2% milk and had no problems with the thickness. For the starter, you can either use 1-2 TB of plain yogurt that you buy at the store or you can use a package of dried yogurt culture. For my first batch, I used Cuisipro’s Yogurt Culture, and then after my first batch I always made sure to save 1-2 TB of yogurt to use in my next batch.

How to Make Yogurt in the Donvier Yogurt Maker:

1. I heated up a liter of milk in a glass container in the microwave until I saw that it was steaming. This took me around 8 minutes in my microwave, and I stopped to stir and check on it every couple of minutes.

2. Then I removed the milk from the microwave and placed the thermometer into it, because you need to let the milk cool until it is 110 to 115 degrees. You can see in the photo above that the thermometer makes it super simple, because you just wait until the temperature falls in between the two black lines marked as “Add Starter.”

3. Next, I added 1-2 TB of the starter yogurt or dried yogurt culture into one of the eight yogurt jars that comes with the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker and I mixed some of the warm milk into the starter.

4. I poured the starter / warm milk combination that I mixed together in my yogurt jar back into the big container of warm milk, and I mixed it well.

5. For the next step, I filled each of the eight jars equally with the milk / yogurt mixture, covered them with their lids and placed them into the base of the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker.

6. I plugged in the base and for my first batch, I set it to run for 10 hours. The instruction book says you can increase the time for thicker yogurt or decrease the time for thinner yogurt, and in a future batch I did let it run for longer and it made the most delicious, thick, creamy yogurt!

7. That’s it! Now I just had to wait. There are several alarms to let you know when your batch of yogurt is about to be done, and then when the yogurt is finished, the machine automatically turns off and beeps for a minute to remind you to put your yogurt into the fridge, because you need to chill the yogurt for 3-4 hours before it is ready to eat.

How did the yogurt come out? Amazing! Much tastier than store bought yogurt, and best of all, there are no preservatives or artificial ingredients. I could control how much sugar was added to each serving – and I opted to use Agave Nectar rather than actual sugar to make it that much healthier. I even added my own fresh fruit chunks or fruit preserves to make fruit flavored yogurt.

One final point I want to make is that the Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker is well-built and sturdy, and they only use safe materials. If you look at the photo above very carefully, you can see that the yogurt cups are made of a plastic that contains no BPA, which is so important because any time you heat up a plastic container that contains BPA, the BPA can seep into your food and scientists do not even know the long-term effects of this yet but it is not sounding good. In fact, many states have already outlawed the use of BPA in baby products. So I was thrilled to see the no BPA stamp on the bottom of the plastic yogurt container.

Now that I have a Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker, I think it is safe to say that I will never buy yogurt again. I love to just set it up the night before, let the machine run all night, and then place it in the fridge the next morning. In fact, I think I just might need to order another set of Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Maker Jars because my house goes through that much yogurt!

How to Enter the Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Maker Giveaway:

Where to Buy the Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Maker: You can buy one here: Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker

How to Win: You can win a Cuisipro Donvier Electronic Yogurt Maker by visiting the Cuisipro Website and leaving comment below with your favorite product on their site! You must do this before doing any of the extra entries listed below. And do not forget to read the Cuisipro Donvier Yogurt Cheese Maker Review and to enter that giveaway as well!

Extra Entries: Each of the following will give you a certain number of EXTRA entries into the giveaway, so do as many of the following as you would like! Good luck everyone!

1. Subscribe to my updates via e-mail by clicking here: Subscribe to Opinion Queen by Email, confirm the subscription, and leave a comment below to let me know that you have subscribed to my e-mails (or tell me if you already are). (2 entries)

2. Tweet about my giveaway with a link to my site, and leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. You can do this every day! (2 entries)

3. Make your facebook status about my giveaway with a link to my site, and leave a comment below with a link to your page. You can do this every day! (2 entries)

4. Grab my Banner in the right sidebar and post it on your website (or tell me if it is already there)! (3 entries)

5. Add a link to OpinionQueen.com from your blog or website, and leave a comment below with a link to where you added the link. (3 entries)

6. Follow me on twitter: TheOpinionQueen and then leave a comment below with your twitter name. (2 entries)

7. Tell everyone about this giveaway on Digg, Stumble, in a forum, meme, Google Buzz, blog it, or any other social networking place (2 entries for each one that you do!)

8. Leave a comment on a non-giveaway product review post on my site and leave a comment below to let me know what you commented on. (1 entry)

The winner will be selected on December 13 through a random number generator and contacted via e-mail. If there is no response from the winner within 3 days, then another winner will be selected. Only US Residents are eligible for this giveaway.