As you can probably imagine, Cincinnati Reds Opening Day is a big deal around here. On the years that we don’t go to the season opener, we enjoy hot dogs, pretzels and good beer at home. Even our pups like to get in on the celebration! (Well, any celebration, really. As we all know, dogs are pretty much always ready to party.) They wear holiday appropriate garb and discuss intricate stats about our city’s boys of summer. Baboon would love to see Joey Votto get a ring this year while Gorilla watches Gapper on the television with confusion in her eyes. (We all do.)
This year, we decided to up their celebration game with some homemade dog treats created and adorned especially in honor of America’s favorite past time. This recipe is so easy and can be made with or without the icing on top. But who are we kidding? We are a house full of artists, so of course the cookies were going to be decorated. *Beautifully, even. :)
*Okay, that’s subjective, we know.
Homemade Dog Treats for Opening Day
Dog Treat Recipe:
2 small sweet potatoes chopped
¼ cup shredded plain coconut
¼ cup shredded and chopped carrot
½ cup peanut butter
1-2 cups flour of choice (I used oat and coconut flours. The amount you use will depend on dryness of your flour.)
1-2 tbsp water
Dog Treat Icing Recipe:
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1-2 tbsp milk (for a smooth and spreadable consistency)
2 tbsp cornstarch
Berries and turmeric to color the icing
How to Make the Dog Treats:
Preheat your oven to 350F.
First, chop the sweet taters and add them to a food processor with the chopped carrots, coconut flakes and peanut butter. Blend until a lump of organic mass forms. I added a little water here to help the process along. Then add your flours. I ended up using ½ cup oat flour (rolled oats pulverized into powder) and ¾ cup coconut flour. Again, I added a bit of water because the dough was dry and crumbly.
Next, I turned the dough into a bowl to make sure it was all mixed consistently. Like I said, the dough was somewhat crumbly, so I placed it between two pieces of parchment paper to roll out to about ⅜”. Then I used cookie cutters to make the shapes I wanted: baseballs, stars and bones, of course. I had to use a spatula to move the shapes to parchment lined baking sheets because of the crumble factor. Then I baked them at 350F for 25-30 minutes.
Let them cool completely before icing. (I noticed that the cookies were dry and crisp after baking, but when I added the yogurt Icing, they felt soft and moist again. Yeah, I said moist. Come at me, bro!) To make the icing, just put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Raspberries made a deep pink color, blueberries made violet and turmeric made pale gold. So to make the colors more saturated, I ended up adding a little food coloring.
Baboon and Gorilla absolutely love these dog treats! Whenever they hear us open the container, we get accosted in the kitchen by our furry mafia. Demands for payment are made… or else! And we always comply because they are the cutest tiny mafia we’ve ever seen.
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Let us know how you’re celebrating Opening Day this year in the comments! (And if you have other dog treat recipes that you’ve tried and your dogs enjoy, we’d love to hear those, too.) Until we meet again, we hope you and your pup play like a champions today!
