Treat your dog to some holiday “cookies” of their own with this Slice and Bake Christmas Pinwheel Dog Treats recipe made with healthy pumpkin and Greek yogurt!
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Oh what fun it is to bake during the holiday season! In fact, it’s really the only time of year that I truly enjoy baking. The rest of the year, I try to avoid it. I’d like to think that I’m a decent home chef, but I never really got my mother’s incredible baking gene. Still, I decided to make time to whip up batches upon batches of Christmas cookies this year (with the help of Betty Crocker sugar cookie pouches). The tins are stacked and ready to be turned into assorted cookie trays for our holiday gatherings. But there was one last holiday treat that I really wanted to make – dog treats!
I love spoiling the family dogs. It’s so much fun to see them get just as excited as the kids in the family when you bring them a new toy or treat! So while the family is indulging on all of their holiday sweets, I thought I’d make some simple “cookies” for all of the dogs to enjoy.
These Christmas pinwheel dog treats are made with a whole wheat base, pumpkin, and Greek yogurt. Hunter is on a mainly grain-free diet, but we slip in some extra treats every now and then.
Honestly, I don’t really think Hunter’s skin issues are as affected by grain as they are by the environment, but it’s still not a bad diet for him to be on. For the holidays, we’ll let him go off his diet a little bit – kind of like the rest of us!
Let’s break down the ingredients
If your dog is truly allergic to grains, use your favorite substitute flour in this recipe. I’ve used coconut flour in the past. I had some leftover pumpkin puree in the freezer, so I decided to use it in this recipe. Pumpkin is a great source of vitamins and good for digestion making it a really beneficial ingredient.
I recently learned that dogs can have Greek yogurt. As long as it’s plain and unsweetened, they can enjoy small doses of it. Greek yogurt has probiotic benefits for dogs, too.
Since these are Christmas treats, I decided to give them a fun, peppermint swirl look to them. I used just a couple drops of red food coloring for one half of the dough. If you’re going to use food coloring, I highly suggest using a natural food coloring. The rest of the dough has no coloring in it. The orange tinge is from the pumpkin.
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1 egg
- Water
- Red food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 and prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a mixer, combine the flour, pumpkin, Greek yogurt, and egg. Combine just until dough starts to form.
- If the dough seems dry and crumbly, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time, until the dough sticks together. The dough should be slightly stick, but easy to work with.
- Turn the dough out on a floured surface.
- Cut the dough in half. Add a couple drops of red food coloring to half of the dough.
- Roll each portion of dough out until it's about 3/8 inch thick.
- Stack each layer of dough on top of one another and roll up, jelly style, to create a long log.
- You should be able to cut through the dough right away. If it's not firm enough, stick it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
- Cut the dough into slices and place on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown on the outside.
- Allow the treats to cool completely. Store in a sealed treat jar or gift in a small cookie tin.
These treats will be slightly soft in the middle fresh out of the oven. Allow them to cool completely on wire racks and they should be crisp and airy. It was like Hunter knew I was making them for him. He couldn’t wait to try one! I ended up giving him two and storing the rest in a small cookie tin. Now that I know they’re Hunter approved, I can’t wait treat the rest of the dogs in the family to some homemade treats for Christmas!
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