Doggie Biscuits

We've had a dog sharing our lives for most of the time that Sweetie and I have been married, mostly black labs. If you know anything about labs, you know that they love to chew, are very affectionate and are easy to spoil because they are so lovable and appreciative of attention. Although I manufactured my own training treats back when I was first dog trained (and it really is the human who gets trained, not the dog...well later the dog), for some reason I've never made dog biscuits.

We have a really cute metal biscuit tin shaped like a dog bone with a colorful graphic on the front of a dog in his doghouse. Usually I fill it up with dog bones from the store. A couple of days ago I noticed that it was empty and my baking bug took hold. After a while on the Internet looking at various recipes, I put together my own recipe with bits and pieces from a number of source ideas. I really haven't been baking much at all since January but I knew I could make dog treats. For ease of preparation, I decided to forgo cutting them out to look like bones and just cut them into rectangles. They aren't as cute that way, but Pi doesn't seem to mind. Besides, they are in a cute container!

I started with the idea of grains soaked in boiling water. I do that for bread making and like the idea. Cornmeal and rolled oats sounded good, plus I had a packet of chicken soup flavor granules that didn't go into a salad where I used the Ramen noodles, so I added that to the corneal/oats mush for added flavor. Dry milk powder added to the flour mixture (half whole wheat) sounded like a good idea, too. Peanut butter was always going to be an ingredient because Pi loves peanut butter. There is an egg for his coat shine, a touch of salt and a touch of honey for flavor.

I baked the dough at 325 degrees F for 20 minutes, then took the baking sheet out of the oven and divided up the dough so that I could spread out the treats. I used the end of a metal spatula to cut the rest of the way through the dough along the scored lines, then spread each treat out away from it's neighbor. That meant using another baking sheet. They both went back into the oven for another 10 minutes, but I could have baked them a bit longer and it would have been OK I think. After they cooled on the pans 5 minutes, they went onto a cooling rack so that they would dry out a bit more and crisp up.

Pi loved them! Lots of tail waggin' going on here.  He only gets a couple a day because even with all of the good ingredients, they are meant to be treats and we don't want a heavy dog...another lab trait if one isn't careful.

Hope you try these if you have a dog. Your doggie will be glad you did and you will know exactly what is in those treats.

Doggie Cookies
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon chicken or beef bouillon granules
1/4 cup rolled oats
2 cups flour (half regular, half whole wheat is what I used, but all of one or the other is fine)
1/4 cup dry milk powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey

In a large bowl mix the boiling water, cornmeal, chicken or beef bouillon granules and oats. Let sit 15 minutes.

While above mixture is sitting, put the flour, dry milk powder and salt into a stand mixer or large bowl and mix to combine.

Add the soaked cornmeal/oat mixture to the flour mixture, along with the egg. Mix to combine. Add the peanut butter and honey and mix to combine. If necessary, add additional water or flour to make a firm but sticky dough.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Roll out dough and cut with a bone shaped cutter and place on prepared cookies sheet, or make balls of dough and place them on a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet and flatten with a glass as you would sugar cookies, or do as I did and use dampened hands to push the dough into a large rectangle on the parchment or Silpat, about 1/2 inch thick and as evenly flat as possible, then score dough with a long knife into squares or rectangles.

Bake cookies for about 25 - 30 minutes until golden brown. If cookies are small, them might be done sooner, so check smaller ones sooner.

If you scored a rectangle of cookie dough, remove from the oven after 20 minutes and separate treats, spacing them at least 1/4 inch apart on the pan. You may need another pan. Return to oven and bake another 10 -15 minutes until golden brown.

Let pan(s) sit for 5 minutes on the counter, then remove cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Third Time is the Charm for Easy Little Bread

It's a good thing that Sara invited us to experiment with the recipe she gave the Bread Baking Babes this month! With a new 2 year old dog on the house I was looking forward to the easy part of the Easy Little Bread that Sara of I Like to Cook, our Kitchen of the Month, gave us. I had forgotten how much a young dog is like a toddler, but it is also rewarding in that, like a toddler, you gets lots of affection back for the care given. His name is Pi (like the mathematical term) and he is a rescue dog and a gorgeous black Labrador with a sweet disposition. Unlike most young labs I have known, he is mellow and doesn't' try to jump on people. The only time he is puppy-like is when he is playing with his dog toys which leads to lots of laughter and fun.

The easy little bread turned out to be not so easy for me. For my first attempt I followed the recipe exactly and ended up with a dense and fairly flavorless bread even though I followed the recipe closely.

That might have been the problem since I almost always add some sort of twist to recipes, even ones I've never tried. I love, love, love oatmeal bread so I decided to try it again but to cook the oats before adding them to the batter, plus I put in 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds for flavor. Unfortunately I both misjudged the amount of liquids to use and left it to rise too long. I ended up with a gray bread that I didn't even try to eat.

The third time was the charm! That's the one in the photo at the top of the post. I took half of the rolled whole grains (in this case a mixture of rye, wheat, oats and barley) and cooked them for a minute and a half in the microwave with 3/4 cup of water. The other 1/2 cup of grains went, uncooked, into the bowl with the flours. I also increased the plain flour to 2 1/4 cups and used bread flour because I ran out of all-purpose flour making the other two breads and a loaf of banana bread (more about that another day) plus the cup of whole-wheat flour. I increased the water by 1/2 cup. If you include the water used to cook the grains that were cooked, that is an additional 1 1/4 cup water offset by an additional 1 1/4 cup flour. The resulting bread was good. It rose, it had lots of flavor and a much better texture and crumb than the first one. It makes great toast.

Oddly enough it isn't like the twists from last month even though both are oatmeal breads. This Easy Little Bread has no kneading involved and has a much more open crumb and rough texture. Should be great with soup!

This photo is for comparison of bread #3 and bread #1 (the shorter one):

The changes I made only add five minutes to the process (for cooking and cooling the oatmeal) so it is still a very quick and easy bread. This is also a healthy bread with only a tablespoon of honey and no milk, eggs, or butter in the dough. Do give it a try. It might become you favorite go-to bread for quick and easy bread making.

If you'd like to be a Buddy you can use the original recipe, below, or try your own variations. The Third Time is the Charm version is below the Easy Little Bread recipe in case you want to try my version. Once you have baked YOUR version, send an e-mail with a photo and a link to your blog to Sara at iliketocookATshawDOTca by July 29th to be included in the round-up and to get a Buddy badge. Do visit the other Babes' sites to see their breads this month. I'm sending this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for the weekly Yeastspotting event, a wonderland of yeasted breads that you should visit regularly if you love baking breads.

The following is from Susan's post...just to keep my readers up to date :) Thanks Susan!

And now for something a little different:

The Babes will bake and post on August 15th in honor of Julia Child’s 100th birthday, and we would love for the Buddies (that is, anyone who would like to play), to join us in posting on that day. Big thanks to Elle for creating the invitation. For the recipe we will be baking, please email Susan: susan at wildyeastblog dot com (NB: This is an invitation for NEXT month, August. THIS month (July), Buddies are still invited to make the Easy Little Bread.)


Easy Little Bread
from 101 Cookbooks

1 1/4 cups / 300 ml warm water (105-115F)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
1 tablespoon runny honey
1 cup / 4.5 oz / 125 g unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup / 5 oz / 140 g whole wheat flour
1 cup / 3.5 oz / 100 g rolled oats (not instant oats)
1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Stir in the honey and set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast blooms and swells a bit - 5 - 10 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the flours, oats, and salt in a large bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir very well.

Brush a 8-cup loaf pan generously with some of the melted butter. Turn the dough into the tin, cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C, with a rack in the middle. When ready, bake the bread for 35-40 minutes, until golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan. I finish things up by leaving the bread under the broiler for just a heartbeat - to give the top a bit deeper color. Remove from oven, and turn the bread out of the pan quickly. Let it cool on a rack so it doesn't steam in the pan. Serve warm, slathered with butter.

Makes 1 loaf.

Adapted from Gran's Kitchen: Recipes from the Notebooks of Dulcie May Booker.

Prep time: 10 min - Cook time: 35 min



Third Time's the Charm Easy Little Bread
based on recipe from 101 Cookbooks

1/4 cups warm water (105-115F)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (one packet)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup rolled oats (not instant oats)(I used a mixture of rye, wheat, oats and barley rolled whole grains)
1 1/2 cup warm water (105 - 115F)
1 tablespoon runny honey
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used part bread flour...ran out of all-purpose)
1 cup / 5 oz / 140 g whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (not instant oats)(I used a mixture of rye, wheat, oats and barley rolled whole grains)
1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing (I used spray canola oil to oil the bread pan)

In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast into the 1/4 cup warm water in a small bowl and stir until the yeast dissolves. Set aside for a few minutes, until the yeast blooms and swells a bit - 5 - 10 minutes.

While yeast is blooming, cook the 1/2 cup rolled oats/mixed grains with the 3/4 cup water in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Cool. Mix in the 1 1/2 cups water and the runny honey and stir to mix well. There may be some clumps of cooked grain...that is OK.

In the meantime, mix the flours, 1/2 cup oats/mixed rolled grains, and salt in a large bowl..

Add the yeast mixture and the wet mixture to the dry mixture in the large bowl and stir very well.

Brush a 8-cup loaf pan generously with some of the melted butter (or spray with cooking spray). Turn the dough into the tin, cover with a clean, slightly damp cloth, and set in a warm place for 30 minutes, to rise.

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C, with a rack in the middle. When ready, bake the bread for 55-60 minutes, until golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan. If the top is too pale, leave the bread under the broiler for just a heartbeat - to give the top a bit deeper color. Remove from oven, and turn the bread out of the pan quickly. Let it cool on a rack so it doesn't steam in the pan. Serve warm, slathered with butter. Makes great toast!

Makes 1 loaf.

Note: Total water used for Third Time bread is 2 1/2 cups. Total flour and grains is 4 1/4. Depending on your flour you may need slightly more or less flour, but batter is meant to be fairly loose and sticky. No kneading is necessary.