Well, these past six months with my sweet boy have flown right by and just like that - in the blink of an eye - he's already half a year old! He fills my heart with an immeasurable amount of joy and I could never imagine life without him. His 1/2 birthday was last Friday and we celebrated with a homemade pup cake, lots of kisses and belly scratches, and quality time at the park fetching tennis balls and chewing on sticks (I threw the balls... he chewed on the sticks). I wanted to share a few of my favorite photos of him up until today, along with the recipe for the apparently tasty cake I made him, so keep scrolling to get to the fun stuff!
Okay, and now for the REALLY fun part - cakkkkkeeee!
Cake Ingredients:
- 3 eggs
- 2 bananas
- 1 cup of peanut butter
- 2 cups of whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- 1 1/4 cup of water
Frosting Ingredients:
- 8 ounces of cream cheese
- 1 1/2 cup of peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon of water
Extras:
- Cesar dog treats
- Blue Buffalo bone
- Hobby Lobby candles
Directions:
Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Next, lightly oil your cake pan. I used a heart-shaped mold and got it from Hobby Lobby! Next, whisk together all of the dry ingredients (flour, oats, and baking powder) in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (peanut butter, banana, and eggs) until smooth. In your wet ingredient bowl, begin slowly adding a little of the dry ingredient mixture, followed by some of the water (a portion of the 1 1/4 cup) and continue to alternate adding each of these until all ingredients have been combined. Next, fill the cake pan with the batter, leaving about 1" at the top for the batter to rise. Bake for 10 minutes, or until you can successfully insert a toothpick into the cake and remove it without seeing any wet batter residue.
For the frosting, combine the cream cheese, peanut butter, and water in a bowl until the mixture become uniform and creamy. After the cake has cooled and been removed from the pan, use a spatula to whip the frosting on top of the cake, making sure to spread it evenly. I used candles and dog treats as the final touches to the cake! The candles are from Hobby Lobby as well and I just used a '1' a '2' and a regular long candle for the fraction divider. The treats around the edges are Cesar dog treats. And last but not least, I topped it with a Blue Buffalo bone!
The awesome thing about this cake is that all of ingredients are human friendly, too - no raw chicken or squirrel guts are included (lol... yuck). SO, you can snag a bite too as long as you get to it before your pup slobbers all over it! I tasted the batter and it was yummy but didn't have a bite of the cake after it was cooked. I can't say for sure whether or not it remained tasty from my own experience, but Dawson surely devoured the cake and the frosting was his favorite part!
Enjoy! :)