Saturday, August 30, 2014

Doggie biscotti

The Pacific Northwest has been enjoying the world's best summer, sunny day after sunny day, most with cool breezes in the morning and temperatures rarely above 85 F in the hottest part of the afternoon. During one of the rare rainy spells, I decided to do some cooking that involved turning on the oven--not for myself, which is boring, but for the dogs. I made some changes to a recipe for pumpkin biscotti for dogs and came up with the kind of hard, crunchy biscuits appropriate for MirĂ³ and Emily's "bedtime biscuit," the phrase that gets a reluctant Emily running inside from her evening explorations. Below are the ingredients I used; they're easy to alter, especially for Airedales who are not picky.
Ingredients:
1 c pureed pumpkin (not pie filling)
3 Tbsp molasses
2 eggs, beaten
1/8 cups canola or olive oil
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 c ground flax
1/4 c coconut flour
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick spray.
Mix all the wet ingredients together in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another. Using an electric mixer or wooden spoon, slowly combine the dry ingredients into the wet. Do the final mixing by hand, kneading the dough into a ball in the bowl. You can add water or flour as needed, but the dough needs to be firm. Divide the ball into two parts, place on the cookie sheet, and pat each down to a rectangle about 1 inch thick. How long or wide the rectangle depends on the size you want the biscotti to be.

Place the loaves at least 2 inches apart and bake 35 min until firm. Cool the cookie sheet and loaves on a rack for 30 min before slicing, but that time is approximate.  Lower the oven temp to 300. When you feel like it or remember that you've left this project on the kitchen counter, place the loaves on a cutting board and slice to the desired thickness, generally half an inch. Some people have the ability to slice both loaves to a consistent thickness. I do not.

Lay the slices on the cookie sheet (and a second one if you don't have room on the first), bake at 300 for 20 min. Turn the slices over and bake for another 20 min until the biscotti reach the hardness that you want. When making people biscotti, I sometimes take the easy way out, making small, thick biscotti that can stand up so that I don't have to turn them over half-way through the cooking time.

There are healthier snacks, of course, usually involving liver that stinks up your whole house; but these are no worse than the common biscuits you buy at the store--and you know for sure what's in them.


 

3 comments:

  1. Mom has never heard of coconut flour before. See, mom, you learn something new every single day! These biscotti look delicious and we bet they taste fabulous!

    Love ya lots♥
    Mitch and Molly

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes please. You may send some to:

    ME
    On an island on the west coast
    Canada

    Thank-you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those sound pretty tasty! We know some dogs who would probably love them. :)

    ReplyDelete