Baking Of The Canine Kind

Many anorexics are foodies, and I myself can profess to being one of them. Food envelopes my thoughts day in and day out (not always for the best) and I am never happier than when trawling through the Waitrose recipe pages or watching the latest nail  biting episode of Masterchef.
My love of cooking and of baking has become slightly easier lately after starting to take anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, but there was a time when I was eaten by anxiety around food, and making even the simplest of sandwiches could be a mammoth, frightening and unnerving task.
Given this, you will understand my joy when I received a  "Doggie Biscuit" cookbook  for Christmas, claiming to be full of recipes for "healthy homemade treats - seasoned with affection". Now I can bake without having to eat the end product, fulfilling my joy of baking without the anxiety of the warm aromas of human food emanating from the oven and beckoning for me to dig in. All I have to do is tell myself that, "no - this is dog food", however tempting it may smell, and I can leave the treats to my enthusiastic Golden Retriever cross Labrador, Saffy.
So, without further delay, here is a recipe for a taster of these delectable bites that you may try to make for your little darlings. If you find that this idea is something that you may like to try, the recipe is from the book "Doggie Biscuits" by Ingeborg Pils.

Bonnie's Banana Biscuits

Ingredients

2 carrots

1 banana

200g plain flour

100g rolled oats

50ml sunflower oil

water as required

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C

• Grate the carrots finely and mash the banana to a pulp. Mix with the flour, oats and oil to make a dough. Add water as necessary to bind.
• On a floured surface (although I find that a silicone baking mat works just fine), roll out the dough to a 1cm thickness and use a biscuit cutter to make shapes of about 4cm in size. Place these on a non-stick baking sheet and bake for 25minutes. (I gave mine three minutes extra, but all ovens vary).

• Turn off the oven and leave the biscuits to cool and dry out slightly overnight, before storing in an airtight container for up to three weeks. 

I must say, these smelled as delicious as my homemade carrot and banana cake, and fittingly their texture was more like a hardened cake than a biscuit. My mother tried one and said words to the effect that they are almost too good for doggies.
As the introduction to the book explains, these treats are extremely healthy for your four-legged friends, containing no additives or flavor enhancers, but should still be eaten in moderation. Of course, certain ingredients such as cocoa and grapes are poisonous to dogs, and should never be added along with ingredients such as white sugar, spicy seasoning and chemical additives.
I do not see anything that can stop these passing over into the realm of cat treats, but maybe they should be scaled down first for your feline family-members.

Happy Baking!
Yours,
The Anxious Foodie <3