We can't leave out "man's best friend" from this Mini-Treats Mini-Series, can we?! I stumbled across this amazing website, aptly named Best Dog Treat Recipes, and I just had to try the recipe for Pumpkin Cookies.
Here's what you need:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 tablespoons dry milk
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon dry yeast
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
Note: Do NOT use pumpkin pie filling because it usually contains spices, and nutmeg is toxic to dogs!
This recipe is designed to be super easy. You can put all the ingredients in your bread maker and set it for the dough cycle. But, if you're like me and don't have a bread machine, load it all in your stand mixer and mix with the dough hook. Once the ingredients are mostly combined, knead the remaining flour and oats in by hand.
Roll the dough into 1/4-inch thick sheets,and use a cookie cutter to cut out the desired shapes. This dough is not sticky like rolled cookie dough for humans so you should have no problem rolling it out. In fact, I took an extra precaution and rolled the dough directly on a SilPat, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The cookies can be easily transferred to a cookie sheet, without shape distortion, after the shapes are cut.
Carefully remove the excess dough from around the cut-out shapes.
Transfer the cut-out shapes to a lightly greased cookie sheet and let them rise for 1 hour on the countertop.
Bake the dog cookies for 45-60 minutes at 275 degrees F. After baking, turn off the oven, and let the cookies continue to dry overnight in the oven. In the morning, they will be hard and crisp. They can be stored in an airtight container, at room temperature, for about 30 days.
Of course, I wanted to decorate the dog cookies before I distributed them to the neighborhood dogs, but Nani knew something was up and was very excited about them. I couldn't resist giving her a taste of an undecorated pumpkin cookie.
*sniff, sniff* "Hmmm...what is this exactly?"
"Ooo, tastes pretty yummy!"
"Thanks, Mom! You're the best!"(Excuse the obnoxious glare from the fireplace. The picture was too great not to include in this collection.)
"Mom, don't even THINK about taking this away before I'm finished!"
Nom, nom...
"Oops, look at that! I dropped a piece!"
"No sense in letting that go to waste! Yummy!"Anyway, time to decorate the cookies. There are many different ways you can decorate your dog cookies, including royal icing, Candy Melts, and carob (looks like chocolate but is not poisonous to dogs). For these cookies, I chose to use Candy Melts. When you pick out your Candy Melts at the craft store, be sure you do not get the chocolate ones! You must only use the white chocolate candy melts for your puppies!
Not having the best decorating forsight, I forgot to pick up green Candy Melts for the stems of the pumpkins so I had to make green by mixing blue and yellow.
Not having the best decorating forsight, I forgot to pick up green Candy Melts for the stems of the pumpkins so I had to make green by mixing blue and yellow.
In any event, melt the Candy Melts in a microwave-safe bowl and load it into a piping bag fitted with a tip 3. Then, let your imagination run wild!
Once the white chocolate has set, you can package the cookies to give to the neighborhood pups. The doggies who benefited from this batch of cookies are Nani, Sugar, Baby, Tonka, Grincher, Bella, Harley, Otis, and Max.
Happy early Halloween!
This concludes this Mini-Treat Mini-Series. Thanks for tuning in! Are there other mini-treats you'd like to see featured in a future series? Or is there another series topic you have in mind?
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