Taste the difference honey and ginger yogurt
Ginger isn’t a flavour that I immediately associate with dairy products or complementary to milk’s flavour so I decided to try this one over the more ‘conservative’ options of lemon curd and cherry to see what Sainsburys were capable of cooking up.
This is Sainsburys higher quality range, which includes claims such as sourcing the milk from particular regions, in this case the west country (the codes UW 020=b and sg 014=c appear to indicate it is sourced from our old friends Yeo Valley).
Ingredients include milk, whipping cream, water which I think is a first for me, sugar, Spanish honey, crystallised ginger (which includes more sugar), lemon juice, cornflour, flavourings and finally ground ginger.
It makes sense to include both kinds of ginger as the crystallised form doesn’t have much flavour or scent while the ground form doesn’t provide any texture. Half the purpose of these sort of up-market products is the inclusion of something substantial or toothsome that can be experienced which sets it apart from the pureed fruits of the cheaper options.
We have seen the use of cream and sugar in different yogurts before of course, to increase decadence and mouthfeel, but water is unusual, and the inclusion of a thickener in the form of cornflour, likely to counteract that, is also strange.
The water points to an element of penny pinching, but then the inclusion of Spanish honey is strange in that context, given the somewhat onerous import requirements under Brexit.
Perhaps it is just cheaper than British honey, this wouldn’t be so surprising given the state of British food and farming. Nonetheless, taken as a whole the recipe doesn’t inspire confidence.
The macro breakdown is 138 calories, 7.6g fat, 14.4g of carbs, of which sugar is 13.8g, 2.9g of protein and 0.1g of salt to round things out per 100g.
This implies that the yogurt was fat free before the inclusion of the cream, and the incredibly high percentage of sugar is surprising. The honey is 4% of the product which means it should be close to 3g of sugar on its own, and sugar is before honey in the ingredients list which suggests it would be around 5g per 100g.
The texture is thick and soft at the same time, nothing like a strained yogurt. I stirred it quite a bit to get the ginger dispersed, which seemed to thicken it even more. I wonder if it would whip up into a whipped-cream-like product with enough effort.
My first spoonful contains no discernible crystallised ginger, although there are visible chunks in the pot. The ginger flavour is still highly present however. The second spoonful has at least three chunks. It turns out that this is far closer to fresh ginger than I had expected, as the term crystallised ginger to me suggests a candy type product, something akin to a chewier date or dried fruit. This is far softer. There is quite a bit of ginger fire to this which of course is somewhat quenched by the dairy but nonetheless it is very dominant.
Honey in contrast is always a relatively simple flavour and there is nothing here that would really alert you to its presence, especially with the effect of the ginger, other than the packaging.
It is a sweet yogurt but the overwhelming ginger, the fattiness of the cream and perhaps the additional sourness from the lemon means that as a whole it doesn’t just taste of sugar. The ginger slows the eating process assuming one chews the little pieces, which allows the fireyness to linger in the throat.
This is probably the first time I haven’t felt a drying effect from the cornflour. The yogurt itself is hardly present as a flavour but simply as a vehicle for cream and ginger, which it does a good job at doing. If they had jettisoned the yogurt could have been made into a creamy dessert akin to gooseberry fool which Sainsburys also sells and which I love (must review soon) but the decision to sell it as a yogurt perhaps makes this more appealing to a broader audience.