Among the hundreds and thousands of punch recipes out there, here’s one from chef David Venable of QVC. He adds a bit of fizz with lemon-lime soda.

The frozen fruit in the recipe offsets some of the ice so the punch doesn’t dilute. Another anti-dilution tip: Freeze some juice into “ice cubes.” Finally, consider the drink dispenser below, which has a central core to hold ice cubes apart from the punch. The cubes melt into the core and can easily be refreshed.

For adults, you can keep a bottle of vodka, gin or tequila next to the punch.

Here are 10 punch making tips from THE NIBBLE.

Ingredients For 12-14 Servings

 
*Here’s a recipe for homemade grenadine.

Preparation

1. COMBINE all of the juices and the syrup into a large pitcher and place into the refrigerator. Chill for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to blend. Just before serving…

2. POUR the fruit juice mixture into a large punch bowl (or a drink dispenser as shown in the photo). Add the lemon-lime soda, frozen strawberries, and peaches. If desired, serve the drink over ice cubes.

 
MORE PUNCH RECIPES

 
THE NEW PUNCH BOWL: A SPIGOT DISPENSER

Forget the punch bowls of yore. For entertaining, this plastic beverage dispenser with spigot (see photo) is the neater option for pouring. Outdoors, it keeps the bugs out of the punch bowl.

The model in the photo has a center ice core—a plastic insert for ice that doesn’t melt into the punch. Learn more about it on Amazon.com.

New Petite Crème, a creamy yogurt
alternative without the tang of yogurt. Photo
courtesy Stonyfield.

The category of Greek yogurt has exploded in the U.S. Is there anyone who isn’t eating it? The Greek category accounts for 47% of all U.S. yogurt sales.

Yes! A large enough number of people don’t care for the tang, such that Stonyfield, a subsidiary of French dairy giant Danone (of Dannon yogurt fame) that specializes in organic yogurt, has introduced a product to capture their business:

Called Petite Crème (PEH-tee CREHM), it’s a French dairy product called fromage frais (fresh cheese), known in Germany and elsewhere as quark.

Fromage frais is high-moisture-content, unaged cheese: drained, coagulated milk (simple lactic set curd) intended to be eaten within days of its production. It is most popularly eaten for breakfast or with fruit for dessert. In the U.S., it is waiting to step right in where the yogurt-averse fear to tread.

Fromage frais has a creamy, soft texture and fresh, sweet flavor, although the fromage frais cheeses of the U.S. are less flavorful than those made in other countries from unpasteurized milk (U.S. law requires all cheeses aged fewer than 60 days to be made of pasteurized milk to eliminate potentially harmful bacteria; pasteurization kills off friendly, tasty bacteria in the process).

Petite Crème has the consistency of yogurt without the tang and debuts in seven flavors:

 
The Stonyfield line is certified kosher by OU.

The all-organic ingredients include cultured pasteurized nonfat milk, sugar, cream, cornstarch, vanilla or other flavors and guar gum. What’s missing? Live and active cultures, like Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.

In yogurt, the cultures ferment the milk, causing the thickening. With Petite Creme, cornstarch and guar gum (a bean-based powder) the job.

The nutritional content is similar to Greek yogurt: 10g protein per 5.3 ounce cup.

 
We recently had the opportunity to taste all the flavors and have two personal favorites: Mon Cherry Amour, with intense black cherry flavor, and Plain & Simple, the original fromage frais.

Be sure to try the plain version as well as the fruit flavors. Photo courtesy Stonyfield.

Fromage frais, quark, yogurt: What’s the difference? Cheese and yogurt* are made from a common ingredient—milk. But depending on how that milk is handled, thousands of different recipes result.

Cheese is produced from milk due to the activity of special dairy bacteria and the action of rennet. These act on the proteins in milk, causing them to coalesce into a gel-like curd which is the beginning of cheese.

 
Minor changes in any of these areas can have a dramatic affect on the final product.
 
*Yogurt is not a fresh cheese. The definition of cheese requires rennet. Even though yogurt has a texture very similar to fromage frais and quark, there is no rennet in yogurt. Rennet coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). Curds and whey exist separately even in fresh cheeses like fromais frais, where they are not visible to the naked eye.
  

Iced coffee with a shot of vodka: Now there’s an idea for chillaxing on a summer day. You can have an old school Black Russian or a White Russian (recipes).

Or, you can add vodka, tequila or rum to iced coffee.

De’Longhi, maker of premium espresso machines, sent us recipes for these two iced espresso drinks.

If you don’t normally sweeten your coffee, leave out the sugar. Adjust the proportions based on the size of the glass you are using.

RECIPE: RUSSIAN ICED COFFEE

Ingredients For 1 Drink

Preparation

1. BREW the espresso coffee. Let cool. Add the sugar and the vodka.

2. POUR into a glass and top with cream. Add crushed ice, stir and serve.

COLD COFFEE CREAM

This recipe requires some pre-freezing, but the result is thick and rich.

Ingredients For 2 Drinks

Preparation

1. POUR the cream into a container and freeze; mix together the coffee and rum and freeze in a separate container.

2. CUT the frozen cream cut into cubes and place in the blender with the vanilla extract. Pulse.

3. ADD the frozen coffee cut into cubes and blend for a few seconds, until combined.

4. POUR into glasses and garnish with cocoa.

[1] At the time of manufacture, there were 10 million or more live and active cultures (photo © Pinkberry).

[2] Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt (photo © Ben & Jerry).

[3] Kemps get high grades for the texture of its frozen yogurt (photo © Kemps),

[4]Look for the seal on boxes and containers. Image courtesy National Yogurt Association.

[5] Yasso yogurt pops are a Nibble favorite (photo © Yasso).

[6] Can Mixmi deliver the probiotics/active cultures that other brands can’t? See the comment under photo #7 (photos #6 and #7 © Mixmi).

“What happens to the beneficial bacteria in frozen yogurt,” a reader writes. “Does freezing kill them?”

Yes and no. Live culture frozen yogurt maintains the cultures’ benefits because the flash-freezing technique used in the production of frozen yogurt, unlike slow freezing in a freezer, only makes the organisms dormant.

It does not kill them—or at least not all of them, all at once. However, even if a brand is certified as the number of bacteria in frozen yogurt is usually lower than that in the fresh yogurt from which it was made.

Before we continue, elsewhere on The Nibble you’ll find:

> The history of frozen yogurt.

> The history of yogurt.

> The different types of yogurt.

> The different types of frozen desserts: a photo glossary.

> The year’s 50+ ice cream and frozen dessert holidays.
 
 
Yogurt is made by culturing milk with bacterial cultures. The words “live and active cultures” refer to the living organisms, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus*, which convert pasteurized milk into yogurt during fermentation. (Note that the milk is pasteurized before culturing in order to remove any harmful bacteria.)

This fermentation process is what creates yogurt, with its unique taste, texture, and healthful attributes. The yogurt cultures—all the strains of bacteria added to the product—make up about 1% of the ingredients.

Not all frozen yogurt has live and active cultures. Just as some manufacturers use different combinations of cultures, frozen yogurts are created with different processes. Some are heat-treated after culturing, which extends the shelf life of fresh yogurt but kills the cultures.

Why should you care about the live organisms? There is preliminary scientific evidence suggesting that live cultures in regular and frozen yogurt can boost your immune system, prevent osteoporosis, and prevent gastrointestinal infections, ultimately helping your digestive system as a whole.

However, unless you can somehow get that frozen yogurt shortly after its manufacture, the cultures may no longer be live.
 
 
WHAT ABOUT PROBIOTICS?
 
In frozen yogurt, active cultures (like L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus) are the bacteria used to ferment milk into yogurt.

 
Different yogurt brands, refrigerated and frozen alike, add probiotics, which aid with digestion. Red Mango is one frozen yogurt brand that adds probiotics.

> Here’s more on probiotics.
 
 
What About Active Cultures?

The levels that remain in frozen yogurt depend upon the numbers that were in the fresh yogurt from which it was made, and on the hardiness of the specific cultures that were used. Thus, Some frozen yogurts are better sources of live cultures and/or probiotics than others.

In order to receive the National Yogurt Association’s Live & Active Cultures seal (image #4)—a voluntary labeling program—frozen yogurt is required to contain at least 10 million cultures per gram at time of manufacture (for fresh yogurt, it is 100 million per gram). The amount was agreed upon by research scientists who participated in studies of the health benefits of live cultures in yogurt products.

If you like a brand that doesn’t have the seal but want to know what’s inside, look on the brand’s website. If you don’t see it, use the Contact Us form to ask what types of bacteria their product contains and how many live and active cultures are in the finished product.

But there’s more to consider:
 

[7] Mixmi Froyo claims it contains six live and active cultures and delivers “over one BILLION probiotics per serving” but does not clearly publish a consumer-facing “guaranteed at end of shelf life at time of consumption” CFU count (e.g., “≥ X CFU through best-by date”). They do emphasize testing and “live & active cultures,” but that’s not the same as a formal guarantee of the live count at consumption.
 
 

 

[8] Yasso often ranks at the top of supermarket frozen yogurt brands (photo © Yasso).
 
______________

*Other cultures may be added as well, but these are always the first two.
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Today it grows throughout southeast Asia, notably in southern Japan, India, Pakistan, north Thailand and Vietnam. More recently, the tasty fruit has been planted in California, Florida and Hawaii, ensuring U.S. fans a more reliable supply. Depending on location, the harvest runs from May through September.

We’ve been coming across it in farmers markets: the skin of different varieties ranges from rosy red to pale dusty rose to golden tan and pale olive green. The paper-thin skin is peeled away to revel the milky white fruit inside. Here’s everything you’d ever want to know about lychee from Purdue School of Agriculture, including how to dry them in the skin.

The fruit is also transliterated as litchi. Perhaps the more useful information, though, is how to pronounce lychee.

The typical lychee is about one inch in diameter. The outer covering is a pink-red, roughly-textured rind that is inedible but easily peeled with one’s fingers. The flesh inside is white, translucent and sweet, rich in vitamin C, with a texture somewhat similar to that of a grape. Children liken lychees to “eyeballs,” and you can see why in this photo.

The fresh fruit has a floral aroma; one account says that the perfume is lost in the process of canning. However, canning adds sugar for a higher level of sweetness, and the organoleptic difference between fresh and canned lychee is not as drastic as, say, with peaches. The canned fruit has more integrity, like canned pineapple.

BUYING & STORING LYCHEES

Lychees are extremely perishable. Store in a perforated plastic bag in the fridge for up to a week.

Or, freeze them whole, with the skin on. When they are defrosted, they’ll be fine. You can even eat them frozen: instant lychee sorbet. (You may have to run the frozen lychees under warm water for a few seconds to soften the skin.)
 
In China, lychees are enjoyed out-of-hand. In the West, peeled and pitted, they are used in:

 
For an exotic presentation, serve unpeeled lychees in dessert bowls over crushed ice (provide a bowl for the pits).
 
LYCHEE RECIPES

 
There are dozens of recipes at LycheesOnline.com.
 
LOVE THE FLAVOR OF LYCHEE?

We find that St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur tastes like lychee (or perhaps it’s that elderflowers taste like lychee). We find it far superior to Soho lychee liqueur.

Head out to find fresh lychees. Enjoy them today, and freeze some for later.