Alice White
Homemade dog biscuits have health and taste benefits for your dog. Purchased dog treats often contain ingredients that are unhealthy for dogs – animal and vegetable by-products not described in detail, sugar, preservatives, colorings, … If you bake dog biscuits yourself, you can be considerate of your dog’s allergies and intolerances and use ingredients that Your dog particularly likes. Whether classic on the baking sheet, dog biscuits with a baking mat, dog treats in the Thermomix, with liver sausage, cheese, minced meat, or vegetarian – when baking dog biscuits, you decide for yourself what is in your dog treats.
Baking Dog Cookies – 4 Easy Recipes
Tuna dog biscuits
- 2 cans of tuna in its own juice
- 2 eggs
- 250 g flour
Puree the tuna and work all the dog biscuit ingredients together to form a dough. Bake in any shape for 30-45 minutes at 180 ° C.
Parmesan dog cookies
- 200 grams of flour
- 100 g grated hard cheese, e.g. Parmesan
- 100 g grainy cream cheese (cottage cheese)
- 1 tbsp oil (e.g. rapeseed oil or coconut oil)
Mix all ingredients together. If the batter is too dry, add a little water or meat stock. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 ° C.
Grain-free minced meat dog treats
- 100-150 g ground beef
- 200 g potato flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp oil of your choice
Process all ingredients into a dough. If necessary, a little more water can be added. Bake for 30-45 minutes at 180 ° C. As soon as the biscuits take on color, reduce the baking temperature to 160 ° C.
Liver sausage stars for dogs
- 100 g liver sausage
- 150 g fine oat flakes
- 2 tablespoons Quark
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons oil
Mix everything together until a homogeneous dough is formed. Then roll out on a work surface dusted with flour and cut out small stars. Bake at 180 ° C for approx. 30 to 40 minutes.
Dry and soft ingredients in a 50:50 ratio – this rough guide will help you develop your own dog biscuit recipes. The solid ingredients include flour and oat flakes, the soft ingredients are eggs, water, meat broth, yogurt, liver sausage, etc. Rice and rice flour, as well as millet and other cereal flakes, absorb a lot of liquid and shift the ratio to 30:50 in favor of the liquid ingredients.
Grain-free Dog Biscuits – Flour-free Baking
If you are already consciously feeding your dog grain-free dog food, you might also want to avoid using grain flours in your dog biscuits.
In order for the dog biscuits to be really firm after baking, dry ingredients are necessary. But if you can live with the fact that the treats for your dog cannot be stored for a long time, you can do without them entirely.
If you just want to avoid gluten, rice, amaranth, millet, quinoa, corn, and buckwheat are suitable for your dog biscuits. In their natural form, they are difficult for dogs to digest. They use corn, buckwheat, and rice better than flour, millet as flakes, and amaranth and quinoa in puffed form. You can also use chickpea and coconut flour. It’s even easier with potato flour.
Tools for Baking Dog Biscuits
Bake dog biscuits yourself in the Thermomix
The Thermomix cannot cut out and bake biscuits, but it helps with the preparation of the dough. Especially if you want to chop coarse ingredients such as carrots, nuts, rice, or meat, you can delegate this to your Thermomix.
After chopping, add the remaining ingredients, let it mix everything, and then remove the dough for further processing into dog biscuits.
Bake dog biscuits with baking mats
Baking mat dog biscuits are made with silicone mats for fat-free baking. These baking mats have protuberances so that the fat runs off the baked goods. For baking dog biscuits, they are turned over and the dough is poured into the openings.
The silicone mats are available with pyramid-shaped and semicircular openings. The dog treats are very small and well suited for daily training. The pyramid-shaped biscuits can be a bit sharp-edged and are therefore less suitable for throwing and collecting.
There are also numerous silicone molds especially for dog biscuits, but also those that are actually intended for the production of pralines. They can also be used for baking dog biscuits. Always make sure that the pan is also suitable for the high temperatures of the baking process.
Before the first baking, the silicone mats are evaporated by baking them without content. The oven is opened occasionally so that gases can escape.
Somewhat more liquid dog biscuit doughs are best for baking mat treats because they are easier to distribute. There are suitable recipes for dog biscuits from the baking mat in the Facebook group “Backmattenfreaks – Recipes for dog biscuits” or in the book of the same name on Amazon. However, other recipes can also be used if you add a little more liquid.
Make dog treats in the dehydrator
If you plan to bake dog biscuits on a regular basis, it is worth thinking about getting an automatic dehydrator. Dehydration is a preservation method in which the food to be dried is dried under low heat. In this way, the liquid content is reduced within a few hours and food becomes more durable.
Dry dog biscuits in the automatic dehydrator
In order to make dog biscuits really dry and long-lasting, longer drying is necessary. One possibility is to leave the treats in the oven on low heat for a few more hours and keep the oven door slightly open so that the moisture can escape. A wooden spoon that is clamped in the oven door is sufficient for this.
Another option is to dry it in the automatic dehydrator. Dehydrators dry very gently and are more energy-efficient than the oven.
Jerky meat instead of dog biscuits
Beef jerky makes a great treat for dogs and you can even make it yourself in a dehydrator. Almost all lean meats and fish are suitable. The drying temperatures are too low for pork. The Aujeszky pathogen, which is deadly for dogs, would not be killed. It is therefore not suitable as a dog treat.
The drying process of meat takes 6 to 12 hours, depending on the size and thickness of the pieces of meat.
Store homemade dog biscuits correctly
Dog biscuits with a moisture content above 15% are not stored airtight. This affects almost all homemade dog biscuits if they have not been dried and are really hard and dry. They begin to “sweat” in airtight containers, become mushy, spoil or go moldy.
Homemade dog treats are best kept in paper bags that allow air to circulate and moisture to escape.
Hard, very dry dog biscuits can be kept for around 2-3 weeks. Soft dog biscuits spoil faster. The softer a dog biscuit, the more liquid it still contains and the faster it molds. Soft biscuits are best consumed within a few days. They keep a little longer in the refrigerator.
Bake and sell dog biscuits
For many dog owners, baking dog biscuits quickly becomes a passion. They provide family and friends with their homemade dog treats, which are very popular.
Sooner or later this enthusiasm arouses the idea of some people to build up a side income by selling homemade dog biscuits. But it is not that simple.
Anyone who wants to start as a business dog biscuit baker has to observe numerous regulations and obtain appropriate permits. A business must be registered and a separate kitchen must be available. Even those who only want to sell a little on the side have to adhere to the feed regulation. Those who use meat in their dog biscuits expect far stricter guidelines. The first point of contact is the responsible veterinary office.
