Dog Biscuits

     After Emma's humorous Ice Age referencing title, I felt like this was a little boring, but oh well. I'll just have to make do. It does portray the subject accurately.

     As Emma said in her post, dogs do need treats. They need treats as much as we need candy--desperately!! Enough said. Let's make some dog treats!

     This recipe does call for some things that you may, upon first reading, say 'who in the world keeps these things in their house?!' but you should be able to find all of these things without too much trouble. Look in the bulk section of a health food store, or even your local grocery store. You never know, they may carry some of these ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1 cup cracked wheat
1/4 cup skim milk powder
1 1/2 t. yeast
1 3/4 cup lukewarm chicken broth

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Put in a large mixing bowl the flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, cracked wheat, and skim milk powder.

NOTE: Cracked wheat is different from flour. I did mine in a hand mill.

You can see the texture is rough and there is still a semblance of individual grains.

Once all the above ingredients are in the bowl, combine them completely. Make sure they are mixed thoroughly so there won't be pockets of a certain ingredient anywhere in the finished product.

Skim milk power is especially good for puppies because of the protein. 

On the side, dissolve the yeast in the chicken broth. Let this mixture sit for about 10 minutes.

Yummy yummy! You can see a weird glob at the bottom.
That is a spoon of Bacon fat just so there's another flavor in there.

Add the broth to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to about 1/2 inch thick. I actually found it easier to spread it with a knife than to use a rolling pin. This particular batch was quite sticky so the rolling pin just tore it up.

Cut out the biscuits. I'm using a can that once had tomato paste or some such eatable in it in order to get a round shape. I normally would use a small dog bone shape but I couldn't find it this time around. Oh well. Tastes the same! (Not that I've tasted it or anything like that)

Transfer these to a baking sheet.

Place an egg in a small bowl and beat with a fork or small whisk until smooth. This is an egg wash.

Brush this onto the biscuits with a small pastry brush.

The egg wash will add flavor and nutrients and will give the biscuit a hard, shiny top after baking.
Bake biscuits for 45 minutes. I know it sounds like a long time but don't shorten it! They do take that long. Once biscuits are done baking, transfer to a cooling rack to cool and harden.

Your dog will love these homemade biscuits! Not only is it better for them because of the grains and protein, but the meat broth is so, so, so much healthier for them than artificial flavorings (and it tastes real!).

Recipe from The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery.