There’s nothing like a batch of fresh baked cookies, still warm from the
oven, to bring smiles to faces. With that in mind, and a little spare time one
Saturday afternoon, I decided to bake up a batch of dog cookies to bring a
smile to my pup’s face. The cookies turned out so well we decided to print the
recipe in Modern Dog’s Fall edition and I’ve included it here for you as well
(with some accompanying snap shots). Formulated for dogs, this recipe, called
the Baconator, is surprisingly easy to make. After frying up some bacon to
enjoy with my own breakfast, I saved the leftover fat for this biscuit recipe
(along with a couple strips of bacon that I chopped up for a garnish). As I was
making the cookies I recalled my mom telling me how during the great depression,
when food items were in short supply, it was actually common-place to save
bacon fat and substitute that for the usual lard with which they’d make pie pastry.
I recalled thinking at the time, how yucky pie pastry would be if made with bacon
fat, but after trying these cookies myself, I was actually quite surprised to
find that they didn’t actually taste much like bacon at all, (and probably that
pie pastry didn’t either).  They sure had bacon-appeal for the dogs though as they yummed them down and then begged for more  (I actually taught Penny a
new “roll over” trick using these treats as reward).

So without further adieu, here’s the Baconator Recipe (taste tested on the
dogs at Modern Dogs offices who give them two paws up!)

 

THE BACONATOR

INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water or low sodium chicken stock or the water from canned tuna
6 tablespoons bacon fat, melted (save your bacon grease!)
4 cups whole wheat flour

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
Beat eggs in a large bowl. Stir in milk, water, and bacon fat until well blended. Gradually stir in flour to make a stiff dough. Roll out dough to 1/4” thickness and cut out with a pizza cutter or cookie cutter of your desired size and shape. Regardless of your dog’s size, small is always good. Place on prepared baking sheet.
Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes for a softer cookie or 30 minutes for a crisper cookie. Cool on racks, then store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Freeze those that won’t be consumed in two weeks time to keep them nice and fresh.

 

We had pancakes and bacon one Saturday morning, so I saved the bacon fat for this recipe (and also a couple slices of bacon that I cut up and used as a garnish):

It took me only about 10 minutes to whip up these cookies (baking time extra)

Roll out the dough to a quarter inch thickness:

Once rolled out to the desired thickness, to save time, I used a pizza wheel to cut them into the desired size;

I looked forward to trying these cookies myself as they’re made from all human-grade ingredients and my favourite, organic, stone-ground whole wheat flour from Salt Spring Flour Mill:

These ones just came out of the oven. I ended up baking them for about 40 minutes rather than the 30 minutes suggested in the recipe as I wanted an extra crispy biscuit (Penny especially loves the ones with the bacon garnish):

Lured by the delicious aroma, Penny stands up at attention and takes the first taste-test – sweet success, she loves them!