Homemade Peanut Butter Dog Treat Recipe: "Nana Treats"

Today we're back with a new homemade dog treat recipe that has consistently been one of Basil's favorites. They're his favorite because they're made with love and delivered by his Nana (Tim's mom) whenever she and Pop stop by for a visit — and they've got a little sweet side to them that we're sure he's nuts about too. Nana was kind enough to lend her recipe for the treats to us so we could take a stab and making them at home and share them here on the blog!

So get ready — the following dog treat recipe comes to you today compliments of Nana's recipe arsenal, and she means business when it comes to the kitchen. We made little notes where we varied from the recipe or where you could make ingredient substitutions.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ Cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ Cup quick cooking oats
• ¼ Cup honey crunch wheat germ
• ¼ Cup chunky peanut butter
• ¼ Cup salad oil
• ¼ Cup honey
• 1 Teaspoon baking powder
• ½ Cup water

Substitution Notes: We used whole wheat flour, you can also use brown rice flour. Wheat germ can be found in most grocery stores in the dry cereal aisle with hot cereals and oats. If you can't find honey crunch wheat germ, regular is just fine. "Salad oil" means vegetable oil.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl add 1 cup flour and all of the remaining ingredients and mix at low speed until well blended.  

Note from Nana:  I do not use a mixer but stir with big spoon until mixed really well. *We didn't use the mixer either and even found just mixing with hands does the trick too since this is a pretty thick dough.

With spoon, stir in the remaining ½ cup flour and knead until dough holds together.

Roll dough to ½ inch thick and cut with cutter.  Roll out remaining scrapes and cut as above.

Note from Nana: Flour hands and counter when kneading. For smaller dogs I would roll the dough to ¼ inch thickness. *Can you tell she's made this treat recipe for a variety of different dogs? They all love her treats the most.

We'd recently found and bought this huge 100 piece cookie set that includes the entire alphabet, every number, basic shapes and seasonal cutters for almost every holiday, so we were eager to break them out and play around with different shapes for these treats:

As you can probably gather, we went with a mix of dog bone shapes, letter shapes, some seasonal Easter shapes and some basic circles — the little circles are the ideal treat size for Basil on a more regular basis, but it's fun to break the mold every so often!

Bake at 350 degrees on a large cookie sheet that has not been greased for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven and do not open door for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and cool the treats.

Store in airtight container or freeze and take out as needed.

Since Easter is right around the corner, we couldn't resist making a few bunny and egg shaped dog cookies:

The funny thing about it is, Basil actually loves eating eggs — we'll often mix a plain scrambled egg in with his dry food for a special treat. He'd also probably jump at the chance to chase a rabbit if the opportunity ever presented itself — but we're just as happy leaving it to cookie shapes instead!

We're storing these guy in the freezer right now to hide in Basil's Easter basket later this month — shhhh!

I'll have to admit that while Nana generously lent us her recipe to take a crack at — and while they look the same as her treats, there's just something not right since she didn't make them. It's something about the love that goes into them from your Nana that makes them special — know what I mean?

So, while we'll continue to hope and beg Nana to keep making and bringing us these treats herself, we're always glad to have a new homemade treat recipe added to our own arsenal and hope you and your pups enjoy making our version of "Nana Treats" as well.

Just be sure to tell your pups that Nana loves them when you give them their first taste :)

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Natural Dog Treat Recipes | All Recipes | All DIY Projects