With pumpkins sold at every grocery store, it’s the season for baking yummy pumpkin treats! Although you probably bought a can of pumpkin to make yourself a pie for Thanksgiving, you can use some of that leftover pumpkin puree with this awesome Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treat recipe.
My four chihuahuas aren’t wild about hard, crunchy treats, but two of them actually ate these plain. (A big compliment for a baked anything from my dogs!) To make them all wildly eager to eat them, I also made a peanut butter yogurt frosting.
Since the yogurt frosting isn’t shelf stable, I opted to keep that in the fridge and just put it on for the treats they were getting at that moment.
This recipe is adapted from Princess Pinky Girl. That is the base recipe we used before tinkering to try and make them chihuahua edible.
Recipe:
½ Cup Pumpkin Puree (I baked a pumpkin for this, but you can just use canned pumpkin)
¼ cup Apple Sauce (tastes like hard tac to your dog without it)
3 tablespoons of Peanut butter with NO xylitol (xylitol is poisonous to dogs)
1 Large Egg
2 cups of Rice Flour
¼ tsp of salt
¼ tsp of baking soda
Instructions:
- If you are using a sugar pumpkin, cut it in half and scoop out all the seeds. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a fork easily pierces the flesh of the pumpkin. (I also dabbed a little butter on the edges to help keep it from drying out, but this is optional.)
Scoop the pumpkin flesh into a blender and blend it. If it doesn’t blend into a puree, add small amounts of water until it will. Measure out half a cup of this and add to a mixing bowl. - Combine the pumpkin puree with the applesauce, peanut butter and egg. Blend until combined. Gradually add all the other ingredients until it forms a light dough.
- Flour a work surface so the bones don’t stick, and roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thickness. Use a chihuahua sized bone cookie cutter to cut them out. I got mine on Amazon (Affiliate link) and it comes with a neat little tool to help you push the bones out. It’s a godsend for making sure you don’t break off the ends.
- Arrange the treats on a baking sheet. You’ll need to either spray the baking sheet with oil or use parchment paper to keep them from sticking.
- Bake at 350F for 8 minutes.
This amount of dough makes about 100 tiny bone treats. It’s a lot! It’s more than enough for your dogs and to give to the neighbors too. If your dogs are ho-hum about bready treats like this, add this peanut butter frosting to make them go wild:
Frosting Recipe:
¼ cup of plain Greek yogurt
1 tbs of peanut butter
Mix until combined, and frost bones with it.
That’s it! If your dog likes peanut butter or pumpkin, they’ll enjoy these snacks. Many dogs who aren’t wild about either like the treats a lot better with the addition of the yogurt frosting.
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