Our dog Charlie loves his “bonuses” as we call his dog biscuits. Usually they’re “Gravy Bones” or “Shapes”. He knows exactly where they’re kept in a box in the laundry room! Being a greedy Labrador, he doesn’t have a full up switch.

I was looking through the latest Great British Bake Off Recipe book when I noticed there was a recipe for dog biscuits. These home made biscuits contain mashed sweet potato and sugar free peanut butter. I had a leftover sweet potato and thought I’d give them a try. The only ingredient I wasn’t so sure of was that the recipe included dried cranberries. I love dried cranberries and use them in cookies but I’m sure that dried fruit is a no-no for dogs. I chose to leave these out of the biscuits just to make sure.

First, I needed to boil and mash the sweet potato before making the biscuits. Then they needed to cool. This meant that I had to allow an hour for this before actually starting on the biscuits for real.

I used a dog bone cookie cutter. It’s a plastic one which doesn’t cut out as well as a metal one. I thought I’d see if I could order a couple of different ones depending on how the biscuits turned out.

After the mashed sweet potato was cooled down enough, I weighed out enough for the recipe into a large mixing bowl. I then mixed peanut butter (Whole Earth because it doesn’t contain sugar and any other additives), as well as some beaten egg.

Next, I added dried parsley, plain flour and porridge oats to the mixture until it was combined into a dough. This dough was then rolled until it was 2-3mm thick.

When the biscuits were cooled down, I gave one to Charlie to try. He loved the biscuit and didn’t even listen when I told him to wait! I sent some biscuits to a couple of friends with dogs and they said that their dogs loved them too. I need to test out some more recipes with different ingredients soon; I have also seen ones with pureed pumpkin and another one containing cheese!

The recipe said that it would make about 25 biscuits but I didn’t get as many as that out of the dough I had. I baked them for 15 minutes until they became crisp around the edges. They crisped up even more when they came out of the oven and cooled down on the wire rack.

A couple of weeks later I had a second attempt at the same recipe. In the meantime I had been on a cake website to order a few bits and pieces and found a set of two metal bone shaped cookie cutters. There was a big and a small one so I hoped to use the smaller ones as dog treats for little pooches! I also found a paw print cutter but I’ll use that another time!

In the second batch I made a double portion. Half of the batch was the larger sized biscuits, the other the smaller ones. I adjusted the cooking time down to about 8 minutes for them, whereas the other ones take about 15 minutes.

All being well, I am hoping to add the doggy treats along to sell on my website but I’ve been so busy I’ve not got around to it yet!

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx