Instructions

1. Use a thick set yoghurt rather than a runny drinking one. A thin yoghurt spreads the instant it leaves the tip and you get puddles where you wanted dots.
2. Blend it smooth if there is fruit in pieces through it. A lump of fruit is far wetter than the yoghurt around it, and it blocks a piping tip as well.
3. Crush the rice cereal to somewhere between a grain of rice and a breadcrumb. Whole flakes jam the nozzle; ground to dust it vanishes and you lose the texture it was added for.
4. Fold the cereal through and start piping immediately. It is dry and thirsty, and every minute it waits in the yoghurt it softens further.
5. Pipe dots about the width of a coin onto solid sheets with a gap between them. They spread slightly as they warm, and two that touch dry as one thick lump with a wet middle.
6. Dehydrate at 57 °C for 11 hours and open the machine as little as you can. Dairy is slow for its size and every look costs heat that has to be put back.
7. They are ready when a drop lifts off the sheet whole and folds without splitting, like a thin piece of leather. Anything that tears as you lift it wants longer.
8. Let them cool right down on the bench before they go anywhere. Warm drops are noticeably softer than cold ones, and judging them hot is how people end up with a mouldy jar.
9. Vacuum-sealed with an oxygen absorber they hold a month in the pantry, six in the fridge and a year frozen. In an ordinary zip-top bag keep them refrigerated for a month, and once they come out of the fridge treat them as a five-day food.