Celebrating Oli’s golden oldie birthday with a doggone delicious golden birthday cake. Oli’s golden oldie themed 12th birthday party featured a naturally coloured glorious golden dog-friendly homemade birthday cake. This year, the special celebration cake was a pumpkin and peanut butter dog birthday cake with coconut yogurt frosting. Yummo! Here’s the recipe and DIY details for Oli’s special cake.
Celebrating with Cake
It’s not really a birthday party without a cake, is it? In the words of Julia Child, “a party without cake is just a meeting” and while we do enjoy meetings with doggone delicious snacks, barkday parties with dog-friendly cakes are far superior. Haha! Our dog birthday cakes are usually meatloaf-style cake creations, but for Oli’s barkday pawty this year I decided to make meatballs as a side and bake a more conventional dog-friendly cake instead. I may have gone a little overboard on the baking for this year’s celebration, but it’s been a rather difficult year for Oli and turning twelve deserves a fuss indeed. Plus, the freezer needed to be re-stocked with treats. Bulk baking between open home viewings (with careful choices about ingredients and smells!) let us have an incredible birthday buffet selection and a very full freezer afterwards.
Pumpkin and Peanut Butter Dog Birthday Cake Recipe
Pumpkin and Peanut Butter Dog Birthday Cake with Coconut Yogurt Frosting
The recipe below fits one mini-springform pan, as pictured, but can be made in different pans or as a small batch of mini-muffins, if you prefer. This is a thick muffin-like cake batter, and it makes a lovely dense moist cake or tasty little pupcakes. Frosting is optional.
Cake Ingredients:
Cake:
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
- 1/2 cup of dog-friendly pumpkin baby food (I used pumpkin and beef – yum!) or equivalent substitute
- 1 tbsp ground flax or LSA
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1/2 cup self-raising wholemeal flour or equivalent substitute
Optional Frosting and Decorations:
- Low fat thick-style yogurt
- Coconut flour
Making the Cake:
- Preheat your oven to 160C (or local equivalent) and gather together your baking ingredients and materials. Lightly oil your pan(s).
- Combine the egg, peanut butter, and baby food in a small mixing bowl.
- Stir in the flax/LSA and chia seeds
- Add flour and mix until just combined.
- Spoon into a prepared mini springform pan (or alternative baking pan/dish of your preference) and smooth/tap to even out the batter.
- Bake for approximately 25 minutes (time will depend on pan shape/size). Remove to cool slightly before loosening the spring-form ring to cool completely. If baking in advance, once fully cooled, the unfrosted cake can be wrapped short term or frozen for longer storage.
Decorating the Cake (Optional):
To avoid soggy cake and save fridge space, frost shortly before serving. Yogurt based frosting requires refrigeration. The cake can be sliced and refrigerated short term or frozen longer term (we have a few leftover slices in our freezer right now for special treats).
- Mix a small quantity of coconut flour into thick-style yogurt to further thicken it so it can be moulded and stay in place atop the cake.
- Dress the cake and celebrate! I used my mini heart plunger to indent a ring of hearts around the edge of the frosting and topped the cake with some special homemade carrot and peanut butter dog treats made with a stamped 12.
Dog-Friendly Cake Making Tips and Tricks
- See our comprehensive pet chef post on homemade birthday and special occasion dog cakes for additional information on types of cakes, decorating ideas, storage, and more.
- Cakes can be baked into other shapes and sizes. Remember to adjust your cooking times and/or temperatures accordingly. Since my cake was just a single mini springform pan, I used the toaster oven to bake it. It’s far more energy efficient than the full sized oven.
Recipe and Ingredient Tips and Tricks
- When using ingredients like peanut butter or yogurt for dogs, take care when when shopping to avoid the artificial sweeteners, especially xylitol, which is extremely dangerous for dogs. Xylitol may also be labelled as sweetener code 967.
- If using baby food for dog treats, always check the ingredients to ensure the contents are dog-safe. If it is sold in your area, canned pumpkin puree (plain pumpkin, not spiced or sweetened pie filling) can be used instead. It isn’t common down here, although I’m not sure why since Kiwis love pumpkin. You can also make the cake with homemade pumpkin puree, but that usually has much less water so you may need to play around with the flour quantity or add some liquid for a suitable batter consistency.
- See our intro post on making birthday and special occasion dog cakes for different frosting and decorating ideas, or browse through the other DIY dog cakes and pupcakes for ideas.
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.
