Doggone delicious carob? Irresistible peanut butter? Happy howlidays, indeed! This easy recipe for peanut butter and carob dog treats is simple and doggone delicious, too. It’s great for baking roll-and-cut dog treats or using plunger cutters, like these Christmas dog treats.
Fun with Shapes and Stamps
Shaping and stamping are some of my favourite ways to decorate homemade dog treats. Unlike coatings or toppings, there are no extra ingredients, no extra set time, and less mess, which is great if the kids are helping out. And it’s fun! The finished treats look fancy, but are still plain enough to be freezer-friendly, easily packaged as presents, and pocket portable for treats on the go.
Plungers combine both treat decorating techniques in an easy all-in-one cutter and stamp. I have a four-pieced Christmas plunger cookie cutter set, but there are all sorts of different shapes, sizes, and styles. 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 plunger cookie cutters Amazon (affiliate link) for product examples and ideas. Beware. Plungers can be addictively fun! I’m already shopping for more…
Peanut Butter and Carob Dog Treat Recipe
Homemade Peanut Butter and Carob Christmas Dog Treats
This recipe was adapted from our go-to smooth roll-and-cut peanut butter dog treat dough recipe. Plunging or cutting shapes is optional. Any roll and cut dough can be used to make hand formed treats (ball and flatten), pressed into a pan and cut to size, formed as treat bars, and more. See our simple shortcuts for making baked dog treats for ideas.
Treat Ingredients:
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
- 1/4 cup room temperature stock or other dog-friendly liquid
- 1/4 cup carob powder
- Approximately 1 cup of brown rice flour, plus extra for rolling
Making the Treats:
- Preheat your oven to 180C (or local equivalent) and gather together your baking ingredients and materials.
- Combine egg, peanut butter, liquid, carob, and any optional ingredients in a mixing bowl.
- Incrementally add flour, mixing into a cohesive workable dough. The amount of flour required will vary depending on your individual ingredients and any optional add-ins or substitutions. Note that if you are not including the optional ingredients in these treats, you may need to use a little extra flour. Missed the mark? No worries! You can add a little bit of extra liquid, a small amount of olive oil, or additional flour to adjust consistency if/as needed.
- Rest dough (optional but recommended).
- Roll, cut into desired shapes, and place on a prepared baking pan.
- Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes. Cooking time will vary with shape/size, so keep an eye on the oven.
- Cool before serving and storage.
Using the Peanut Butter and Carob Dough to Make Plunger Dog Treats
To use plunger-style cutters instead of traditional cookie cutters, you need a nice cohesive dough (see adjustment tips above) that will roll smoothly without cracking, take an impression cleanly, and release from the plunger without difficulty. Low fat dog treat doughs are tricky, but this peanut butter base is easy to work with and has just enough oiliness from the peanut butter for me to use it easily with my plungers.
Thickness of the rolled dough is key for a plunger cutter with stamps, like these, to create clear impression design on the surface of the dough. Too thick and things get squishy and hard to release cleanly, too thin and the design may not take well. I find it easiest to roll in smaller batches for a uniform thickness. You can double check the depth by pressing on the back of your lifted cookie (first image in the collage above) to ensure that there is no gap between the dough and the plunger.
When baking plunger treats, I also like to bake lightly and then dehydrate. No worries either way – the dogs don’t mind if their treats look less than perfect! See our post on decorating homemade baked biscuit (cookie) style dog treats for more tips and ideas.
Baked Biscuit Dog Treat Making Tips and Tricks
- See our introduction to making homemade baked biscuit (cookie) dog treats for additional information on baked dog treats.
- We don’t include yield in our treat recipe posts because it is very dependent on what the maker decides for treat shape, size, and thickness when they’re baking. We like to bake small batch treats (variety is the spice of life!). You can multiply our recipes if you’d like to bake a bigger batch for frozen storage or to share with furfriends.
- Baked treats can be broken for smaller dogs, or made bigger/smaller. Keep an eye on your time and temperature. The smaller the treat, the shorter the baking time.
- For a crunchier treat, you can let baked treats sit a while in the cooling oven before removing to get a little crispier or pop the baked treats into a dehydrator.
- Homemade baked dog treats are best consumed within a couple of days from baking or frozen for longer storage. See our post on baked dog treat shelf life and storage for information and tips.
Recipe and Ingredient Tips and Tricks
- Peanut butter can be tricky to measure perfectly. You can wet your measuring cup/spoon or spritz with cooking spray to help measure and release with less mess. Or simply don’t stress about it. Close enough is good enough. There can be big differences in consistency of different peanut butters as well. Little variations like that as well as variations in egg size, temperatures, and other factors are why we like to work incrementally when mixing our dog treat doughs.
- Take care when shopping and check labels on ingredients like peanut butter for dogs to avoid artificial sweeteners, especially xylitol, which is extremely dangerous for dogs. Xylitol may also be labelled as sweetener code 967. I like to use a no added salt or sugar smooth peanut butter when making dog treats.
Hungry for more tasty treats? There are all sorts of homemade dog treat ideas in our blog archives. You can use the category and tag labels to find other recipes that might be of interest or use our internal search tools to find 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.
