Make Your Own Baby Yogurt Melts

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great Easter. We were pretty unprepared which forced me into a midnight Walmart run for basket fillings and we still haven't dyed our Easter eggs... Oops! That being said, we had an amazing weekend with my parents visiting from Wisconsin and thoroughly enjoyed our Easter weekend.

Today began the second week of Gavin's spring break and we kicked it off with a bang. My nephew Parker got to spend the whole day with us. Park is a couple years younger than Gavin which has allowed them to develop an incredible relationship. Olivia adores him too!

The boys were extremely busy playing Batman v Superman, Star Wars and superheroes, so I found myself with a little unexpected free time in the kitchen during one of Olivia's naps. I've been wanting to try making yogurt melts for Olivia. 

She has gotten to the age where she eats a lot of little finger foods, her favorite being yogurt melts. If you aren't familiar with baby foods, they are just little freeze dried discs of yogurt. I often put a variety of finger foods on the tray of her high chair and she will fish through to eat the yogurt melts first.

I saw a Pinterest post where someone made their own version of these using store bought yogurt. Price wise that is significant savings, so I decided to give it a try.

The tools I needed were simple: 1 container of yogurt, a zip-lock bag, and a cookie sheet. I complicated things further because I wanted to keep all of the fruit chunks out. Every tutorial I read just froze them with the fruit still in them but I decided to strain it because Olivia is still pretty much toothless!

I started by flipping over the edge of my zip-lock bag. I put it over the edge of a cup, then put the strainer on top.

I spooned all of the yogurt into the strainer them pressed it down until all I had left was fruit.

After closing up the bag, I cut off the bottom corner to squeeze dots onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet.

Then I stuck the cookie sheet in the freezer for several hours. It probably could have been taken out sooner, but I was busy and totally forgot about it :)

I used a spatula to pop all of the dots off the paper, then put them in another zip-lock bag and stuck them back in the freezer.

About an hour later it was time for Olivia to eat dinner and I was SO excited for her to try them. I wish I could say they were as great as I hoped they would be. Taste-wise, I think they were great. Olivia seemed to like them but not as much as she loves the store bought version. Mess wise they were AWFUL! I still have a lot in my freezer that I will definitely give her, but they aren't something I will give her too often because she was covered in yogurt. 

At least I know now... It is so worth it to buy the store bought version. This is one DIY that I do NOT subscribe to!

Have you ever tried doing this? Is there some at home way to freeze dry something like this?