This post is sponsored by Lunchbox, but all opinions are our own.
Here we find ourselves again- thick into the holiday season. Despite the Holidays being an exciting time for most of us, our dogs many times are thrust into different social situations, time schedules and routines. We feel with this, it makes a lot of sense to go out of your way to make your pup feel included and rewarded for their great behavior in the midst of it all. AND what better way than a pup-friendly gingerbread house?
Thanks to Walmart and Big Pup Brands, we’ve put together a tutorial you can follow for this canine holiday delight. The link to the video tutorial is below. Your dog will love you forever for this one 🙂
So you have two options in creating this one. You can make a full house that is edible or you can use an existing structure to make a house that looks neat (your dog may not even know the difference) and then remove treats for your dog as you see fit.
For those who are going to create a dog safe gingerbread house here is what you need to know:
1. Icing
For icing, you are really looking for something that sticks or has a thicker texture. A combination of a lot of things will work but we found some dog safe icing recipes at Party4Paws.com: http://www.party4paws.com/dog-friendly-icing-recipes/
Low-Fat Carob and Cream Cheese Icing:
- 12 ounces of low fat (or non-fat) cream cheese – whipped cream cheese is perfect!
- 3 tablespoons of carob powder
- 1 tsp of vanilla
- 1 tsp of honey
2. Gingerbread
We found a recipe that came highly recommended from Dog Treat Kitchen – http://www.dogtreatkitchen.com/recipe-for-dog-biscuits.html . Instead of cutting shapes you roll this into sheets and it will make the walls and roof of the gingerbread house.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups whole wheat flower
- 2 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup canola oil
Cooking Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 325° F
- In a larger bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon,ginger and cloves until combined.
- In a smaller bowl, using a spoon, stir together the molasses, water and canola oil. Its thick so a sturdy spoon is best.
- Pour the molasses mixture into the flour.
- Using the same spoon, stir ingredients until thoroughly mixed together.
- Roll out the dough to about 1/2 – 1/4 inch thickness and into sheets depending on the size of the ginger house you want to build.
- Lightly spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
- Place the sheets on a baking sheet.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Cool completely on a wire rack.
The next steps are to create the house using the icing to hold it together and then decorate as you see fit.
Here are some pictures of the alternative as well – using an existing structure to build a treat house for those who don’t have access to all the ingredients or don’t want to bake the entire house:
As you can see, you will have a visitor pretty quickly once they see what you are building. 🙂
