See Related Post: Homemade Dog Treats; and Slide Show
Dry Ingredients:
- 8 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
- 5 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 4 cups mixed flours of your choice (I used 2 cups brown rice flour, 1 cup dark rye
flour, and 1 cup semolina flour for this batch.) - 2 cups dry milk powder
- ½ cup bran (wheat or oat)
- ½ cup wheat germ
- 2 Tbs. salt
- 2 Tbs. instant or fast-acting yeast
Flavorful Fat Choices*
Peanut Butter-Bacon Treats:
- 1 cup cold rendered bacon fat
- 1 cup peanut butter
PoultryTreats
- 2 cups cold rendered duck, chicken, or turkey fat
* If you just make one flavor treat, you won’t divide the ingredients and you will need 4 cups of a single fat. If you don’t have or want to use animal fat, substitute 1 ½ cups vegetable oil for the 2 cups of fat.
Wet Ingredients
- 5 large eggs
- 4 cups very hot water (If you have any left-over broth in the refrigerator, substitute for some of the water.)
- 2 Tbs. dark molasses (or honey)
Making The Dough(s):
- Mix dry ingredients together in a very large bowl until well-combined. Divide dry mixture in half, placing the other half in another large bowl. (About 11 heaping cups dry mix per bowl.)
- Using a pastry blender, cut the peanut butter and bacon fat into one half of the dry mix and the poultry fat into the other half until clumps the size of marbles form in each.
- Stir half of the wet ingredients into the bacon-peanut butter and the remainder into the poultry mixture until the mixtures just begin to come together.
- Turn the PB-Bacon dough out onto a well-floured surface and divide roughly in half. Knead each half until reasonably smooth and elastic, sprinkling with more flour as needed. Knead the poultry-flavored dough in the same fashion. (This one usually takes a little more flour kneaded in to behave nicely.)
- Cover the 4 dough balls with a tea towel or plastic wrap and let stand about 30 minutes. Refrigerate all but one of the dough balls.
- 1 Tbsp. melted butter
Instructions: Rolling, Cutting and Baking
For the dough:
- Preheat oven to 275F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the non-refrigerated dough ball into an 18” by 20” rectangle or about ¼-inch thick. Cut out treats with cookie cutter approximately 3” in diameter and transfer to baking sheets leaving ¼” between cut-outs. Reroll and cut until dough is finished. Brush with beaten egg or water for a nice, shiny glaze if desired.
- Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, rotating baking sheets from top to bottom shelves to ensure even baking at least once during the bake. (I only have three shelves in my gas oven, but create a fourth by placing a wire cooling rack on the floor of the oven.)
- Repeat this process one at a time.
- Turn off the oven after the last batch and return all the treats to oven to dry out completely in the warm oven overnight. Stand treats on end in rows, in order to fit all of one flavor on a single baking sheet, 2 sheets total.)
- Package treats in plastic freezer bags and freeze. Treats will keep out of freezer for up to 6 weeks.
Yield: Approximately 168 of each flavor or about 28 dozen treats total
Recipe courtesy of TwoJunes, Lisa Bell and Nicole Rees