Smooches for pooches, furfriends! Taste the love. XOXO! Here’s how we made these cute homemade layered hugs and kisses XO Valentine’s Day dog treats, plus other cute Valentine dog treat decorating ideas. Or anytime treat decorating ideas! Woofs!
Sharing the Love
When this post was first shared, it included a recipe and decorating information for our XO Valentine dog treats. It’s current formatted with just the DIY dog treat decorating details instead. After all, you can make tasty smooches and delicious hugs using these techniques and any favourite roll and cut dog treat recipe. Pawfect! The recipe that was originally shared with this post is in our rebake list for quantity checks and updated instructions as part of the transition to our new website, but we have lots of other tasty treat recipes that you can use instead. Or you can use one of your favourites from elsewhere. See below for recipe tips.
Choosing a Recipe for Your XO Valentine Treats
You can use any favourite roll and cut dog treat dough recipe to make shapes. But for tiny cutters, like our Xs and Os, a smooth dough without any chunky ingredients works best. You don’t want anything ín your dough that makes it hard to cleanly cut small shapes, trickier release the dough shapes from the cutters, or more likely for treats to break or crumble after baking. If you’re making layered treats using edible glue like carob or yogurt drops, like we are here, it’s nice to pick a compatible treat dough flavour. Although my boys would argue that everything is compatible with those tasty scents and flavours. Haha!
If your heart is set on carob hearts, hugs, and kisses, we have some roll and cut recipes amongst our carob dog treat recipe collection, like our simple peanut butter and carob dog treat dough which makes a lovely smooth dough.
XO Valentine Dog Treat Hugs and Kisses
Cutting Little Letters
The treats shown are made using heart shaped cookies cutters and the “X” and “O” from a set of small alphabet fondant/cookie cutters. Shop around and find a design (and price) that you like. Try specialist baking shops or large online retailers like AliExpress or Amazon. You can check out the alphabet fondant/cookie cutters on Amazon (affiliate link) for product examples and ideas.
As noted in the recipe tips above, with small thin shapes like these letters, choosing a smooth dough is helpful. It’s goo to have a firm but forgiving smooth roll and cut treat dough that handles well. Even then, it can be tricky to get the cut dough out of the little cutters without damaging the shape or cracking off any pieces. You can use a small blunt object to give the dough a gentle push. The handle tip of a tiny spoon is my helper with tricky cookies. It sometimes makes a small dent, but I’m ok with that!
Layering vs. Stamping
I’m making layered XO treats here, but for easier (or more portable treats) you can stamp the Xs and Os into your Valentine treats instead. Stamping is one of my favourite ways to decorate homemade dog treats. You can use your alphabet fondant cutters like stamps to make XO impressions on your heart treats, or use other types of stamps for decorating. I have a mini set of alphabet cookie stamps (affiliate link) that I use to add custom words on small dog treats. You can see them in action in our post on DIY stamped dog treats with a yummy peanut butter bacon bone recipe.
Assembling Layered Dog Treats
To assemble the edible 3D treats like our layered XO Valentine treats, you’ll need a tasty edible glue. A small amount of dog-friendly melted yogurt or carob drops works well. For the pictured treats, I used yogurt drops with a smidge of coconut oil to help with melting and consistency. When melting carob, I also like to use either coconut oil or peanut butter. Mmm… peanut butter! Although as a mini pupdate in case you’re struggling with ingredients, I haven’t been able to find suitable yogurt drops here for a few years. Carob is still good to go and is a favourite with our boys.
Whatever tasty edible glue you choose, make sure your baked treats are fully cooled before assembly. A little squeeze bottle, as you can see in the photos above, makes it extra easy to apply the melted mixtures on the small letter shapes with minimum mess. Once assembled, let the glue cool and set firmly. Then your extra special treats are ready for careful handling and sharing.
Mix and Match XO Dog Treats
I made a few special layered heart XO Valentine dog treats, some solo hearts, and a whole jar of itty bitty edible hugs and kisses. Don’t worry, doggy diet patrol! I know some of those treats look doggone gigantic, but the boys are used to getting small treats, either made that way or broken from larger treats. Except when posing for blog photos like these, of course!
Using our XO Dog Treat Method for Cookies
Baking for people instead of pups? The instructions above are easily adapted for your favourite roll and cut cookie dough. For people, you have the added options of chocolate, icings, and other firm setting human-friendly edible glues. No sharing your sweet treats with the Valenpups, though! And make sure you can tell which treat jar is which if making both. Hehehe.
Other Fun and Cute Treat Ideas
No alphabet cutters? Looking for ideas for other holidays or events? The techniques above can be used to layer other shapes. Take a look through your cookie cutters for ideas. We love getting creative and a bit crazy. Haha! Have you seen our stacked star Christmas treat trees? You can also use melted carob or yogurt drops as the main decorations instead of edible glue. Unlike many doggy icings, they set firm for handling (take care with how much coconut oil or peanut butter you include) and also add extra yummy scent and flavour to the treats. The pictured flower treats were made using a flower-shaped mini plunger cutter, and a little drop of melt-and-set yogurt accents their centres beautifully.
Check out our pet chef post on decorating homemade baked dog treats for lots of other fun ideas, tips, and tricks.
Hungry for more tasty treats? There are all sorts of homemade dog treat ideas in our blog archives. You can use the categories and tags to find recipes that might be of interest or use our internal search to sniff out something specific. Remember, treats (bought or homemade) are for spoiling your pup in moderation. We share ideas from treats that we’ve made ourselves for our pets, but different animals have different preferences (likes/dislikes), just like people. Some pets may have special dietary requirements and/or food allergies/intolerances. If you are ever in doubt or have questions about what’s suitable for your pet, have a chat with your trusted vet.
