You might be one of the many people who have got into baking since being in lockdown but if you are sick of baking for yourself, try cooking up treats for your pet instead.
Battersea is launching a series of online cooking tutorials to show you how to create treats for your cats and dogs at home.
Using ingredients that are safe for pets such as carrots, tuna and potato, the team will release an episode each Thursday at 2.30pm for you to bake along at home.
You can follow along on their YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter pages.
The first recipe today will be a dog cake if your canine pal is celebrating a birthday in lockdown (or if they really just deserve something nice).
Other episodes will show you how to make dog lollies, a cat cake and biscuits for your cat or dog.
Rehoming and Welfare Manager, Rebecca MacIver, said: ‘While we’ve been in lockdown, many people are taking up new hobbies. If you’re a pet owner and are getting into baking, it would be a shame not to let your dog or cat enjoy the fruits of your labour too!
‘If you are going to bake for your dog or cat, its important to remember that you shouldn’t make this a regular treat. Just like us, dogs and cats can get a bit too round if they overindulge and should only have a treat as part of a balanced diet.’
How to make the dog cake
Ingredients:
For the cake:
210g Plain or wholemeal flour
1 Peeled Banana, mashed
Half a Grated carrot
2sp Coconut oil
250ml Oat milk
1 egg
For the decoration:1 Large potato, mashed
Treats to decorate
Meaty stick for a candle (Stick-shaped edible dog treat)
Method:
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees centigrade and line a small cake tin with greaseproof paper. We’ve used an 11cm round cake tin, but if you don’t have one of these you could use a cupcake tray and make a several smaller cakes instead.
Put your banana into a bowl and mash with a fork, then add your whisked egg, grated carrot, melted coconut oil and oat milk. Mix all the ingredients together, then add the flour and stir into the mixture.
Spoon the cake mixture into the lined cake tin and level out, using the back of a spoon. Bake the cake 45 minutes to 1 hour until completely cooked through, then remove the cake from the oven and leave it to cool. Don’t worry if the cake doesn’t rise much – that’s because there is no baking powder in this recipe.
Whilst your cake is cooling, make the frosting. Peel and chop your potato into chunks, then boil in a saucepan of water for 15-20 minutes until soft. Drain your potato and leave to cool before mashing. Make sure it’s mashed thoroughly and that there are no lumps. Loosen with a little water and spoon into a piping bag, ready to decorate your cake.
Cut the cooled cake into two even layers. Pipe some of your mash onto one half and sandwich the layers together. Pipe the remaining mash on top and decorate with your dog’s favourite treats. If it’s for their birthday, you can even add a meaty stick-shaped edible dog treat to make a candle.
Serve your dog a small slice as a celebratory treat!
Battersea are still caring for dozens of animals across their three sites. To give a donation toward their care, please visit donate.battersea.org.uk.
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