Making Cakes – Tips & Tricks
Making cakes for dogs is not hard to do and dog cake recipes are usually simple to follow. There are really three steps to a great cake; select the recipe, modify and bake the ingredients, decorate it. Whether it’s a dog birthday cake recipe you are trying or something for another occasion; the tips below should help you make some wonderful cakes for your dog. Bon appétit!
Recipe Selection:
When you’re making cakes for dogs, always start by reviewing the recipe to make sure that all of the ingredients are safe for dogs. Many human and dog cakes are fairly similar. This makes it easy for you to adapt a recipe from one of your own cookbooks for your dog by excluding or replacing out any ingredients that would be bad for your dog (such as chocolate) and substitute a dog-friendly ingredient (such as carob).
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Reviewing the recipe is also an opportunity to look for any ingredients you know don’t agree with your dog’s tummy or calorie intake.
Recipe Modification:
Go easy on sugar when making cakes for dogs. Refined sugar isn’t any better for dogs than it is for people. If you’re going to include a source of sweets in the recipe, it’s better to use molasses or honey where possible.
A great substitute ingredient for many dog cake recipes is baby food. You can skip pureeing liver and other meat ingredients by buying a few jars of baby food. Most dogs love baby food whether it’s beef, chicken or a vegetable flavor. Baby food is easy to work with since it comes in convenient small jars. It’s nearly as messy as pureeing meat in your kitchen. All you do is open the jar and spoon it into your dog cake batter. If your dog has a particular fondness for beef instead of something called for in the recipe, making the change is as simple as opening a different jar.
Remember that there are some other ingredients besides chocolate that you should leave out of birthday cakes for dogs. Raisins and grapes are also bad for dogs, as are macadamia nuts. Potatoes (not sweet potatoes), tomatoes, peppers (all kinds) and eggplant may aggravate arthritis pain, but are otherwise fine to feed. Caffeine is also on the do not feed list.
Decoration:
When you’re making a dog birthday cake, or any other kind of cake for dogs, remember that the actual cake is only one part of the experience. To really make it special you need to dress it up!
You don’t have to stick with simple square or round cakes. You can bake the cakes in ordinary round or square pans but there’s no reason why you can’t slice and dice the baked cakes into any shape you like before icing them. You could cut the cake in the shape of a dog, a tree, a fire hydrant, their favorite toy, or something specific to commemorate the special occasion, if you like.
You can make cakes stand out by cutting out cardboard figures to go on the cake. Perhaps you could make a cardboard cut out of your dog or cut outs of some of his favorite things. If it’s a Christmas cake then you could cut out a Christmas tree or Santa. It’s easy to make some icing with a little safe food coloring and coat the cut outs with it using a small brush or a spatula. Then just arrange the cut outs on the cake in an artful decorate design. Your family and friends will be impressed and your simple dog cake will like quite nice.
Don’t forget the icing, the candles (don’t let your dog eat them if you’re using real candles), and the other cake decorations. It’s the finishing touches that can really set your cake apart and make it spectacular. Your dog may or may not care (he just knows how excited you are) but your friends and family will certainly notice the care and details.
