Homemade Dog Treats: Carrot-Coconut Mini Cookies

1/2 lb Carrots
1/4 bag (= 4 oz = 1/4 lb) organic Coconut Flour
2 Eggs
1 – 3 tsp. unsalted organic Peanut Butter (just for the flavor)
A hint of Cinnamon
1 1/2 oz organic virgin Coconut Oil (at room temperature) > Side note: The cookies will also come out perfect, if you skip the Coconut oil!
1/2 – 1 cup of water

Makes about 180 grams (6.3 oz) of mini cookies.
You should find coconut flour at your local grocery store. It is not only a grain free flour alternative, it smells really yummy.
Coconut oil is a good alternative to transfats and other vegetable fats. However, it should be consumed with limitations by humans as well as animals as it contains mostly saturated fatty acids.

Other possible ingredients are: berries, more eggs, herbs, unsalted broth …

Besides my oven, I am using the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric Food Dehydrator, Standard to finish the drying process of my cookies without using too much energy. If you do not have a dehydrator, you can use your oven. But I highly recommend owning a dehydrator, just because you can do such a lot of things with it. This model only costs about $50.

Tip: For an added boost of Calcium you can wash the egg shells, (should) pulverize them in a porcelain mortar and can add them to your dough. But you don’t have to.

Preparation: How to make The Homemade Carrot Coconut Mini Cookies

Wash and cut the carrots into small pieces (1/5 inch) and boil or steam them in a small amount of water for 15-25 minutes until they are cooked through.
If you have drinking water quality tap water, put the cooking water aside to use later for your dough after your carrots are ready or use fresh drinking water later.
Crush and mush the cooked and cooled carrots and mix them with the coconut oil, peanut butter, cinnamon and eggs (as well as the pulverized egg shells, if you want).

Now add the coconut flour and work it into your dough, also slowly adding your water (cooled off cooking water or fresh water) in several steps and knead your dough to a soft, non-sticky texture.
If you feel your dough is too moist and sticky, work in some more of the Coconut flour. If you feel the dough is too dry, crumbly and falling apart, just add some more water (or broth).
Your dough will not end up in an elastic, bubble gum like texture, but will rather stay kind of brittle.
It should, however, be cuttable without falling apart. In order to help the dough settle and better cuttable, put small portions into a zipper bag and rub it flat, so the dough is only 2/5 of an inch thick.

Freeze your dough at least over night for a better texture.

Note: I have figured out that freezing the dough first and using it when thawed again for some reason provides for a better non-sticky texture of the dough. This is why I now always make larger batches and freeze most of my dough in small servings before baking it. You can keep one bag of dough frozen for about 3 months.

After you have frozen your dough at least over night and now left it to defrost just a little bit at room temperature for a moment, cut the bag open to slide the entire dough plate on a baking tray covered with baking paper.

Put the packages into your freezer over night and let them thaw at room temperature the next day (or the day you want to bake them). Make sure that the dough is still rather cold or even a little bit frozen, when you cut the bag open with a sharp knife.

You don’t need to leave space between the cookie pieces and you don’t need to cut right through. It can easily be broken into pieces after baking and cooling.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slide the cold piece of dough on a baking tray covered with parchment paper.

Now use the knife to part the dough into small cubes. You can determine the desired size yourself. I make very little treats, so I can use more single pieces without a lot of calories attached. 🙂
You don’t have to cut all the way through the dough. As long as you produce a deep grid pattern on the surface, that’s ok. You will later be able to just break the dough into cookie pieces along these grid lines after baking, drying and cooling.

Your cookies will not expand during baking, so you can really use your available space with the dough you have.

Read more tips on my homemade dog treats on the next page