It’s that time of year again, Finn’s birthday! Big birthday boy!
He’s a whopping six years old now. Goodness, how does that even happen?! I swear, time moves so brutally fast.
Last year I baked up those Pumpkin & Peanut Butter Pupcakes for him, which he seemed to enjoy. But this year, as I like to do, I baked him up something new.
He is such a weird dog. And I think he gets weirder by the day. On his own, mind you, he’s not mimicking his parents in any way. Or at least not me, ahem.
He’s been with us now for four and a half years (huh, seems like longer [not in a bad way]) and every single day he does something odd or strange or cute or whack-a-doo or all four, we can’t help but laugh and shake our heads.
He still doesn’t like people. He still doesn’t like other dogs. Or cats, cats are the worst. Toby the neighbor marshmallow puff dog is his mortal enemy.
Finn has no siblings. He doesn’t realize what he’s missing, the fun he could be having running around all day breaking the house, poor guy.
Mike and I still can’t travel anywhere together because of these issues. No one can come visit us at our house. Or, well, they can, so long as they stay outside. Fifty feet away. No dinners, no entertaining.
We make good on our commitments though and Finn is our commitment, in his forever home.
Finn’s birthday, Mike decided upon his adoption, falls on Mike’s birthday so needless to say, but clearly I’m gonna, the Week of Mike is a doozy. Lots of baking going on.
Recently I’ve cut out yet more people-food items from Finn’s diet, namely pumpkin. Is he allergic to it? I don’t know. I thought I’d try to cut that and sweet potato out to see if the itchy ears, red schnoz, and cookie-tossing tummy would improve.
Nope, not really, except maybe for the latter. Though he now gets digestive enzymes twice daily so his tummy heave-ho are less frequent so, heh, I’m on the right track somewhere.
Ah German Shepherds. So complicated! He sure is a handful, that dog. Good thing we like him!
This is all probably more than you ever wanted to know about finicky Finn and his wacky insides but this does relate, in that eliminations resulted in a search for new dog-friendly recipes that left out pumpkin.
Since it’s blueberry season and blueberries are so healthy and they’re something he can still eat, I wanted to include blueberries.
Thankfully I came upon a good place to start with Flying on Jess Fuel’s Bacon Peanut Butter Pupcakes.
Made a few changes though, the first being bacon. As much as I’d love to share the Joy That is Bacon with Finn, bacon is processed and much too salty. Dogs, nope, don’t need that. I know, I know, it’s just a treat, not his everyday food; I’m a terrible mom.
These are so quick and so easy, in less than forty five minutes, the big birthday boy was chowing down on a big birthday boy treat! Plus it’s a small batch too, only six cupcakes, so leftovers spoiling is minimized if you’re a one dog household or have a smaller pooch. You can even freeze these too, dole ’em out here and there. Oh, serve ’em mostly frozen on a hot day! Oh that’s fun!
It’s pretty much a dump and run recipe, add the ingredients to a large bowl, mix ‘em up…
….add your blueberries (either fresh or frozen are fine, mine happened to be the latter), gently fold those in.
Divide the batter between the six cupcake liners and bake! Tada, happy dog happy dog!
Yeah, I used a plate to serve him a half a pupcake to celebrate his big boy day despite being quite confused about plates still. He must’ve been previously trained that people plates are to be avoided so he gets rather weird about it.
Usually we end up putting baked good nummies in his regular food bowl at which point he’ll then eat them.
Once he got going though, he very much relished in this cake and scarfed it down. Yay, see? Mommy’s not so terrible after all!
Maybe? Maybe he’s finally starting to catch onto the goodness of baked goods? I sure hope so as I fully intend to keep baking for his oddball self.
Looking for some excellent people birthday treats too? Be sure to check out Jen’s Best Damn Chocolate Cake and while you’re at it, you gotta top it with Melt-In-Your-Mouth Chocolate Frosting! Woot woot, happy birthdays!
Ingredients
- 1 egg whisked
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/3 cup quick cook oats
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 cup blueberries frozen are fine
Instructions
- Begin by preheating the oven to 350° F (180° C) and line a muffin tin with 6 paper liners.
- Whisk the egg in a large bowl until combined. Add the remaining ingredients except for the blueberries and stir together.
- Fold in the blueberries gently and divide the batter between the 6 lined muffin tin wells.
- Bake the pupcakes for 18-20 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Test with a toothpick and if it comes out clean, they are ready.
- Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes then remove the pupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely. Decorate the tops with additional peanut butter or leave plain.
What is the shelf life?
Since these are pretty moist, if left out, probably 2-4 days but if you refrigerate them, you’ll likely get up to a week.