Dog Birthday Cake

This Dog Birthday Cake is perfect for fish-loving dogs – and you won’t believe how quick and easy it is. The ‘cake’ is made from just tinned tuna, flour, egg and water. The sugar-free, low-fat ‘frosting’ is mashed potato and a little yogurt.

Decorate with doggie biscuits for a birthday treat your pooch will love.

The recipe makes one cupcake-sized birthday cake but can easily be multiplied up for a larger dog or for sharing.

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It’s hard to believe, but my cocker spaniel Larkin recently turned eight years old. He came to us at eight weeks, and I honestly don’t know where the years have gone.

For Larkin’s birthdays, I always put a few homemade dog treats inside the cardboard tube from a loo roll or kitchen towel. Covered loosely in wrapping paper, he loves to tear into them and snaffle up the treats.

But I decided to make something a little special this year. A dog birthday cake made with tuna and covered in a mashed potato ‘frosting’.

And it went down a storm. In fact, if my partner hadn’t had a restraining hand on his collar in the photo above, Larkin would have been up on the table and downed the whole thing in one go!

TUNA DOG TREATS

Like many dogs, mine loves fish. He has sardines a couple of times a week with his meals plus fishy treats. So I decided to make him a birthday cake based on my homemade Tuna Dog Treats.

Unlike my crunchy Sardine Dog Biscuits, and Sausage Oat Dog Treats, these are soft. Which makes them perfect for turning into a cake.

You can use almost any flour (I give a few suggestions for wheat-free and grain-free in the original post) or even swap other types of tinned fish for the tuna, e.g. pilchards, sardines, mackerel, salmon.

You first make a batter by whizzing together the tin of tuna in oil, an egg, the flour, plus water. This is then transferred to a microwave safe container and pinged for 4 minutes. Take it out, flip, then microwave for another 4 minutes.

This gives you a loaf that, once cold, you cut into bite-sized pieces for Tuna Dog Treats. But here comes the genius part. You can also cut out circles (or squares) and stack them into a layered cake.

DOG BIRTHDAY CAKE WITH TUNA

I wanted to make Larkin a layered, cupcake-sized birthday cake, so cut out one circle with a diameter of 7 centimetres and another of 5 centimetres. I cut the remaining ‘cake’ into treats and popped them in the freezer for another time.

Then it was time to get frosting. One of the great things about making dog birthday cakes is that the recipients really don’t care if, like me, you’re rubbish at icing 😆. I say ‘icing’ but there’s no sugar here. Just little cubes of potato boiled until very soft (no salt needed), drained very well then mashed.

I beat in a small amount of plain yogurt which helps to give a nice texture. If you don’t have yogurt or your dog can’t tolerate it then a little water will do. Then it’s just a case of spreading the potato over the larger circle, popping the smaller one on top and covering that too.

You can leave it at that if you like, but I decided to dust off my icing bag and add a few flourishes. Not great I know, but who’s going to care? Not greedy little Larkin that’s for sure!

Finally, I decorated the cake with dog biscuits and treats. Some I left whole, others I crushed as a sort of doggie-friendly sprinkle.

I think it ended up looking pretty good. Not bad for a terrible cake decorator anyway!

QUICK, EASY, HEALTHY, DOG BIRTHDAY CAKE

You don’t need to be a great baker to make this fun and relatively healthy dog birthday cake.

And if your dog loves fish, they’ll go barking mad for this tuna-packed cupcake.

Even though it wasn’t large and contained wholesome ingredients, I still fed the cake to Larkin in several portions over a couple of days.

I like to keep him trim (if only I was as successful with my own waistline…) and, anyway, wanted him to enjoy it rather than scarf it all straight down. In between feeds, I stored the cake, covered, in the fridge.

If you want to make a larger cake, simply multiply everything up. You’ll need a larger container for microwaving the batter and should adjust the cooking time accordingly.

Have you made this dog birthday cake? I’d love to know what you (and your pooch!) thought of it. Please leave a comment and don’t forget to rate the recipe.

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Dog Birthday Cake

Fun, easy and wholesome: a simple, dog friendly cake made with tinned tuna and topped with a sugar-free, low-fat frosting of mashed potato.

Course Snack, Cake

Cuisine Dog Friendly

Keyword dog treats, homemade dog treats

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 1 cupcake sized birthday cake

Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

• 1 medium potato
• 1-2 tsp plain yogurt
• 1 recipe Tuna Dog Treats see Recipe Note #1
• dog biscuits for decoration optional

Instructions

1. Peel the potato, cut it into roughly 2 cm pieces and place in a small saucepan of water.

   Bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook until very soft (10-15 min).

   Strain through a sieve and leave to drain.

2. Take the cold, cooked block of Tuna Dog Treats and cut out two circles: one 7cm in diameter, the second 5 cm.

   You will not need the rest of the rectangle for this recipe, but can cut it into bite sized pieces and serve as treats.

3. Mash the potato until very smooth, then beat in enough of the yogurt to make a spreading consistency.

4. Cover the top and sides of the large tuna circle with potato frosting, spreading it as smoothly as you can.

   Place the smaller circle on top and cover that with potato too.

   Put the remaining potato in a small piping bag or piping bottle and pipe on in a pleasing pattern.

   Decorate with dog biscuits if liked.

5. Store in the fridge and use with 4 days.

Recipe Notes

Note #1 For the base of the cake, make my easy Tuna Dog Treats recipe up to the stage of leaving until completely cold.

Note #2 This recipe make one large cupcake-sized birthday cake. For a larger cake, simply multiply up the ingredients and use a larger microwaveable container, adjusting the cooking time accordingly.

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