Carrot-Peanut Butter Treats for Dogs

It’s been a while since I posted the ‘dehydrated yam treats for dogs’ recipe and I thought I would spice up Maizy’s food repertoire with a new kind of treat. I just used what I had in the house and improvised and they turned out pretty nicely!

I wanted to make a cookie-type treat without using wheat. Wheat is a common allergen for dogs (like it is for people) and I didn’t want to risk setting off Maizy’s skin troubles. This recipe uses oat flour instead. If you know that the canine in your life is not sensitive to wheat, feel free to use wheat flour. If you want to use oat flour and don’t want to buy it, you can always grind up regular oats in the food processor.

Note: Use unsalted peanut butter. We tend to buy fresh-ground peanut butter in bulk made from only fresh-ground unsalted peanuts. Apparently peanuts often contain a type of mold that is not healthy for us to eat. If you get the freshly ground butter, it decreases the chances of getting moldy peanuts, since the hopper is clear and you can see the peanuts inside! Also, you can substitute the carrot for pureed pumpkin, butternut squash or sweet potato.

The Recipe:

Makes about 3 dozen treats

3 mid-sized carrots, or 1/2 cup pureed pumpkin, butternut squash or sweet potato

1/3 cup unsalted peanut butter (no additives)

1 cup oat flour

4 Tbls ground flax seed

4 Tbls nutritional yeast

1/3-1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 F. Chop the carrots into chunks. Heat a small pot of water and boil carrots until soft when pierced with a fork (about 15 minutes or so) [Note: if you are using already cooked pumpkin, butternut, or sweet potato, skip this step!]:

When the carrots are cooked, drain the water and toss the carrots in a large mixing bowl. Mash with a fork until they are a soft, mushy paste:

Add the peanut butter and stir to combine. Add the flour, flax, and nutritional yeast and mix together with fork. Add water gradually (you may not need the full 1/2 cup or you may need a little more). Make sure the mixture is fully mixed (the peanut butter has a tendency to clump). It should be the consistency of cookie dough. When you’ve achieved this consistency, roll the dough into small balls (about 1″ diameter) and place on a greased (use vegetable oil) or nonstick baking sheet:

Your hands will be messy after this. Feel free to let your canine friend(s) lick the dough off your hands:

Next, using a fork, press the dough into flat cookies, just like you would when making peanut butter cookies for humans. Like so:

When the oven is preheated, send the cookies to oven to be baked:

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a cooling rack:

Let the cookies/treats cool completely before letting any one sample them. When they’re cool, dig in:

Notice the blurriness of Maizy’s tail in the background of that photo. She was very excited to try them. She ate 5 (yikes!) and now she is taking a nap curled up on the couch. Store the treats in a dry container in the fridge. They should definitely last about a week or so. Happy friday!