Recipe: Sweet Potato Pretzels

The second treat we made for Hoku were sweet potato pretzels, adapted from another Dog Milk recipe. Because of Hoku’s potential for wheat allergies, we substituted almond flour for whole wheat flour. The hardest part of the process was twisting the dough into the pretzel shapes. Not sure if it’s because of the almond flour substitution, but our dough tubes seemed to break apart quite easily during the twisting. We made about 14 pretzels total and lightly sprinkled some unsweetened coconut flakes over each one to give it that salted pretzel look.

With the leftover sweet potato, we made little hoku-shaped (star-shaped) potato chips by slicing up the sweet potato into thin pieces, cutting out the shapes by hand and baking them. Cookie cutters would work great here for nice, even shapes. 

Note: Each pretzel is approximately 100 calories (mainly from the almond flour), so again it’s one of those extra extra special treats we’ll only give Hoku on occasion. He gobbled one up in less than 5 seconds so you know it’s that good. 

Note #2: So we made the mistake of baking these at 175F instead of 175C! No wonder we had to double the bake time to get them not to crumble. Must read recipes better next time :)

Recipe: Peanut Butter & Pumpkin Ice Cream

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Hoku’s grandma is in town this week visiting us from Hawaii. Which is just another way of saying that he has been extra spoiled. Every time I look around, I will catch her sneaking him a doggy cookie or some peanut butter.

My mom and I have a tradition of spending a lot of time baking in the kitchen when we’re together so this time, we decided to try our hand at making Hoku some homemade dog-friendly treats.

The first item on our menu was peanut butter and pumpkin doggy ice cream, based on this ridiculously easy recipe we found on Dog Milk. It’s basically plain nonfat yogurt, 100% pure pumpkin puree and peanut butter (we used an all-natural, unsweetened version), all mixed together and chilled in the freezer. 

We topped off a scoop of ice cream with some “doggy sprinkles”: unsweetened coconut flakes and minced carrots.  

Note: I calculated the calories in this ice cream to be approximately 80-100 calories per scoop. Most of those calories are from the peanut butter. Obviously this is not something to feed your pup everyday, but as an occasional cool snack, and preferably after a nice, long walk.