Happy 11th birthday to our very special boy, Humphrey! Blog dog and neighbourhood social animal Humphrey celebrated his birthday with friends, family, snacks, and fun. Paw you way into the party with a recap of his 11th birthday celebrations.
Humphrey's 11th Birthday
As chance would have it, Humphrey’s birthday fell on one of the days he hosts a few neighbourhood furfriends at our place for a regularly scheduled playdate hound hangouts. Construction work on a pool down the street kept us mostly indoors away from smelly fumes, so birthday baking was on the agenda. Along with the usual walkies, squeaky toy fun, and birthday posing, of course. Humphrey and friends love supervising in the kitchen when I’m cooking, especially if there are dog treats in progress.
I decided to double up on our birthday baking. For sharing with his birthday guests and other friends, we baked a batch of mini-muffin chicken pupcakes. These are easy to bake and handle really well, making them a great option for sharing, gifting, and/or storing for later snacks (see the Sous Chefs and Pawty Animals below for more). We also baked his birthday cake, but left that for decorating and serving the following day when Dog Dad could be there, too. Extended celebration fun and moderation on treats.
Sous Chefs and Pawty Animals
Our trusty old polka dot party hats were back in action, all the way from Humphrey’s very first birthday. And of course, Humphrey’s well-worn and well-loved homemade birthday dog bandana. Pawfessional poser Humphrey knows that party hats usually mean something special, fun, tasty, or all of the above are about to happen. His furfriends just know that Humphrey’s mom is doggone crazy, but will follow along and strike a pose if there is a chance of treats, haha! In addition to sampling the celebration snacks, we also packed up little party snack boxes of chicken pupcakes and delivered them to other special neighbour furfriends.
Humphrey's Birthday Cake
Humphrey’s special birthday cake was a layered carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, another nod to his first birthday with carrot cake muffin pupcakes. We often make meatloaf-style cakes for special celebrations, but I decided to use my chicken mince to make easy-share chicken pupcake treats and bake a more conventional-style dog-friendly cake for layering and decorating. We’ll be sharing the full recipe and instructions for both the carrot cake and the chicken pupcakes on the blog, so stay tuned.
Carrots are Humphrey’s favourite vegetable. Including shredded carrot in the cake batter gives the volume a major boost, letting us create a dense moist double layer cake without bumping things up with extra flour. The cream cheese icing looks and smells doggone great, but we’ve lowered the richness by blending cream cheese with yogurt, then adjusting the consistency with a little bit of coconut flour to mimic buttercream. Pawfect for spreading and layering. Eleven candles seemed a bit extreme for a mini cake (even for a Dalmatian firedog, hahaha) so we used two as a 1-1, along with a gummy bone treat as decoration.
Squeaks of Celebration
Fun with friends was the main celebration on the actual birthday, but received a new squeaky stuffed toy to enjoy on his own the next day. This one was a GameBoy-style GameBone stuffy with a removeable squeaky game cassette. So cute. In full disclosure though, the squeaker lives on but Humphrey managed to defeat the GameBone stuffy very quickly. But he had fun doing it. Haha!
Birthday Love and Wishes
As always, we thank you for the love you’ve shared with us since we started Dalmatian DIY, and for being part of Humphrey’s blog dog world. Some of our readers have been with us since his very first barkday. The years go by far too fast, but we love and treasure every moment and memory. Woofs of gratitude for the birthday wishes on his Instagram and Facebook. His birthday cake recipe and chicken pupcake recipe will both be coming up soon here on the blog. Love and licks from our furfamily to yours!
