Oh yes I did… Hehe! Check out these little Christmas tree towers of dog treats! Happy howlidays ideed! These homemade stacked star Christmas tree dog treat towers are assembled with carob “glue” and decorated with carob and yogurt. They’re a very cute little gift to make for your favourite furfriends this holiday season. Here’s how to make your own DIY stacked star Christmas trees. This special decorating method works great for human cookies, too. Just swap the treats and toppings for your favourite people-friendly flavours.
Not Quite a Recipe...
Experimental Green Dog Treat Dough Fail
I experimented with kiwifruit dog treat dough for a natural green without turning to artificial colouring or green veggies. Veggies and carob? Bleuch! Although I’m sure the dogs would still love it! I didn’t want to go crazy with the kiwi, so I used it in combination with banana and other add-ins. The resulting dough was a lovely minty green, but it baked a muddy greenish brown, which I should have expected. Oh well, live and learn. The dogs loved the treats and couldn’t care less about the colour. They smelled pretty great to the humans, too. Plus, assembling and decorating the DIY stacked star Christmas tree treats was a fun success. Yay!
Choosing a Base Dough Recipe
Anything goes! Despite my experimental dough fail, these trees looked beautiful in beige. I think they probably looked better than if I had been more successful with my greens, to be honest. I think these would also be fabulously festive with a doggy gingerbread as well. The stars for the tree can be made using any roll-and-cut dog treat dough. If you’re planning to tint, the lighter the dough, the easier it will be to tint true colours. You can read more about tinting treats in our post on using natural food colourings for dog treats.
Making the DIY Stacked Star Christmas Tree Dog Treats
Treat Making Tools
In addition to the usual baking supplies and materials, you will need a set of star-shaped cookie cutters (affiliate link) or other graduated cutter, like snowflakes or even ordinary circles. If you’re feeling extra fancy, there are even special Christmas tree stack cookie cutter sets! Stars work great, though. A couple of small squeeze bottles or similar are very handy for working with your melted carob and yogurt as well.
Treat Decorating Ingredients:
- Roll-and-cut dog treat dough made with your chosen recipe (see above)
- Dog-friendly carob drops/melts and/or yogurt drops/melts
- Peanut butter and/or coconut oil
Carob and yogurt drops are often sweetened, whether you are buying them from the human baking good section or specially marketed dog treats. Many are a combination of sugars and oils with carob powder, some are unsweetened carob and oil mixtures. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional special treat, but always read your ingredients to know what you’re buying and eating/sharing. Also, check your labels and avoid artificial sweeteners in ingredients peanut butter when used for your dogs. Xylitol (E967) is particularly dangerous for dogs.
Making the Treats:
- Preheat the oven and gather your baking supplies and equipment.
- Mix the dough according to your chosen recipe.
- Roll and cut into star shapes, making sure that you have the incremental sizes for stacking
- Bake according to your chosen recipe.
- Ensure your treats are fully cooled before beginning to assemble your towers.
- Optional: Pre-chill your prepped stars. This will accelerate the setting of your “glue” and ornaments to reduce the risk of running.
Assembling the DIY Stacked Star Christmas Treat Christmas Tree Towers:
Prepping the carob and yogurt:
- Combine carob drops/melts with peanut butter. Melt and pour into your squeeze bottle and place in a hot water bath to keep liquid while you work (optional, but lets you work slower if needed). Carob drops can be tricky to melt compared to chocolate, as carob is usually drier/lower fat. Combining the carob with the peanut butter and gently melting them together can help. Individual carob and peanut butters may vary, but in my experiences to date equal roughly equal measures set to a firm fudgey solid texture. You can use a little less if you want a harder set or swap in a little coconut oil if you need a runnier liquid (or have peanut issues).
- Melt yogurt drops/melts. Pour into your squeeze bottle, and place in a hot water bath to keep liquid while you work (optional, but lets you work slower if needed). Unlike carob, yogurt drops/melts are generally melt well, but you can add a little coconut oil if needed for melting or to thin to a runnier liquid. Just a little, else your liquid may become too runny for decorating and/or might not set firmly.
Assembling and decorating the treats:
- Working from bottom to top, use your melted carob and/or yogurt as glue between your star layers. Not too much. You want to hold the trees in shape, but will also want to pop them apart for smaller treat portions later. Rotate the stars into an offset position as you stack.
- Decorate with additional carob and yogurt.
- Decorate any extra stars and shapes as individual separate treats, if you wish.
- Allow to set thoroughly and enjoy!
Labelling and Gifting
Disclosure: Discounted Kidecals products were provided for my use on a no-obligation basis. Opinions provided are my own and are an honest representation of my user experience.
If you are prepping your holiday gifts, we have lots of free printable tags and labels in our archives. Explore our collection of freebies for ideas and free downloads. To fancy things up even further you might like to check out Kidecals, which is where we got the pawesome wash-and-wear labels pictured above. If you’d like to try Kidecals for yourself, you can use coupon code summersavings (don’t be too jealous, but it’s summertime down here) at check out to save a tidy 15% on your purchase. Kidecals are great for labelling school, sports, club, and travel gear, but don’t let that stop you from using them for other needs, like we did with our emergency contact tags. Very handy.
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
