Carob Muffins for Gizmo

If you know me in any way, you probably know that I love Gizmo more than I love most people. If you met her you would understand why. She was a stray so I can only guess as to what mix of breeds she is, how old she is or what her life before me was like before me but what I do know is that is an amazing dog with the greatest personality and a crazzzzzzy underbite. Seriously, her underbite cracks me up every time.Sometimes it is just half of her teeth, sometimes its the whole bottom row. Either way, both are magnificent!

Gizmo came into my life last spring and has had me talking in cheezy baby voices, buying dog clothes and making homemade dog food ever since! She is a spoiled little brat but she is also the best thing that has ever happened to me. A girl I used to work with found her roaming around a park and couldn't find her parents. She asked everyone at and around the park if they knew the dog, nobody did. She also checked the pounds, no micro-chip and nobody looking for her. The girl decided to hold on to the little mystery dog until she could hopefully find her parents. Time passed and the girl was getting ready to move to college, a place she obviously couldn't take an animal, and the dog already living in her parents house didn't like Gizmo so much so she couldn't stay there. Gizmo was headed for the pound. I was volunteering at a no-kill shelter at the time and when I heard the story I immediately told the girl that if I couldn't keep the dog than we could talk to the people at the shelter to see if they could make room for her.

As soon as I met Gizmo I fell in love, but I was trying not to get too excited about taking her because at the time I was still with Jeremy, we lived with his dad and 2 other dogs. I thought they would both say no. I told Jeremy all about Gizmo and what her fate looked like if we didn't adopt her, he is just as much a sucker for an animal, especially a dog, in need as I am so sight unseen he agreed to let me take her home. While Gizmo the mogwai is technically a male, the name is really fitting for our little girl. She looks like a cross between Yoda and a Mogwai and even though she is always wearing pink and purple clothing, people constantly mistake her for a boy. She isn't the most feminine creature. Weighing in at just over 7 lbs she is full of energy, the best cuddler and plays with the family hounds and my brothers pit bull as is she were the same size as them.

Because she is so precious to me I am very careful about what I feed her. She only gets the best and beause she is vegan so I have to make sure she is getting everything she needs nutritionally. Her favorite treats are dehydrated sweet potatoes and pineapple but I also like to make her, and my other dogs, homemade treats. On a recent trip to Whole Foods I found some Vegan Carob Powder and since it is a common ingredient for dog treats I figured I would pick some up. I finally got around to using it and decided to make Carob Muffins from It's A Vegan Dogs Life.

The recipe is really easy to follow but I was a little nervous I had screwed something up when the dough was super sticky. Then I remembered I was baking for dogs, even if I did screw something up, odds are they were still going to eat and love them. It made 24 mini muffins but there are also variations for biscuits, cookies and bagels. They puffed up a lot so even though they are mini muffins, they are still pretty big for Gizmo so I have been splitting them in half for her, but she has been gobbling them up!


Carob Muffins

Carob can burn easily, so check these more often than you normally would.

2 1/3 cups flour

1/3 cup carob powder

1/3 cup wheat germ or additional flour

¼ cup nutritional yeast

½ tsp. baking soda

1 Tbsp. ground flax

1 Tbsp. hulled hemp seed (optional)

1 ¼ cups water

2 Tbsp. natural applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray mini muffin pans with non-stick spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, carob powder, wheat germ, nutritional yeast, flax, hemp
seed and baking soda.

Add applesauce and water, mixing well.

Scoop batter into the muffin pans and bake for 20 minutes. Remove and let cool completely before serving.

Store in the fridge.

Makes approximately two dozen mini muffins.

Variations
Biscuits- Reduce water by ½ cup and eliminate baking soda. Knead into a stiff dough,
adding ¼ cup of flour at a time until it can be rolled out without sticking to the rolling pin
(add a bit of water if it gets too dry). Roll out onto a floured surface to ¼ inch thickness.
Cut with cookie cutters or knife and bake on a greased cookie sheet until crispy.
Cookies- Add ¼ cup of flour at a time until dough is firm enough to form into balls. Place
dough balls on a greased cookie sheet and press flat with your hand or a fork. Bake until
crispy.
Bagels- Make the same as the cookies except do not press them flat. Dip your finger in
water and poke a hole in the middle of the dough ball. Flatten slightly to form a bagel
shape. Bake until crispy.

Carrot Biscuits for Dogs!

Over the holidays my family and I did a Yankee Swap and I scored the Sur La Table gift card. I was stoked to go get some stuff that I wouldn't normally buy for myself, like really good quality vanilla or other flavored extracts. I had never been to a Sur La Table but I did know that one had recently opened in my local mall. I went in a few days after Christmas ready to spend the whole gift card and probably more on all the things I've lusted after but that didn't happen. The store is pretty well organized but everything is very close together and there is just so much to take in, I started getting a little claustrophobic. I did a quick walk through of the store and noticed the swivel rack filled with cookie cutters so of course I started digging through all the different shapes and sizes. As soon as I saw the picture for the dog bone cookie cutter I had to have it. Of course it was nowhere to be found so I settled for the fire hydrant, the dog house and a paw(which doesn't really look like a paw. See last photo). I also got some other ones for people cookies but I was more focused on the dogs. I went back about a week and a half ago and went through the rack again and there it was, the dog bone!

I've been wanting to make biscuits and all kinds of treats for Gizmo and the other dogs for awhile and now I finally had more reason except I couldn't really find any vegan recipes that really caught my eye. A ppk friend mentioned an all vegan dog cookbook that was for sale on Etsy. I immediately logged on and bought it. If you have a vegan dog or even an omni dog and like to cook healthy, yummy treats for them, I highly suggest you get your butt over to It's a Vegan Dog's Life and shell out the $3 for the PDF version. Word is that the PDF and book aren't going to be available forever. The book contains 75 recipes, 56 of them being mini muffin recipes all with the variations to make them into biscuits, cookies or bagels. There are even some special treats like a gravy, sweet potato chews and carob brownies!

I made my first recipe from the book yesterday. The original recipe is for Carrot Mini Muffins but I used the variation for biscuits so I could use my adorable new cutters! The recipe calls for 1 cup of carrot baby food but since there are no children in my house and it was way too freezing outside to leave the house for baby food, I decided to make my own. I peeled and roughly chopped a few carrots and put them in the steamer basket. I steamed them for about 15 minutes, until they were really tender. Once they were soft enough I threw them into the VitaMix with a few tablespoons of water and pureed the hell out of them. I am sure this could easily be substituted with steamed pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, apples or anything else that your dog loves. I made the dough and as the biscuit directions said, I added 1/4 cup of flour until the dough was able to be rolled without sticking to the rolling pin. I had to add a considerable amount of flour to get this to happen. I also used VegeYeast in place of the nutritional yeast.  Once the dough was all set though it was a breeze from there. I wish I could get pie or pasta dough to roll out that easy for me
.

One they were all cooked up and cooled enough I let Dain try a few, he was the only dog home this weekend to test them. He is extremely fussy when it comes to what he will and will not eat and he was gobbling these up like there was no tomorrow so they must be good!

Carrot Muffins

2 cups flour

½ cup nutritional yeast

½ cup wheat germ or additional water

1 Tbsp. ground flax

1 Tbsp. hulled hemp seeds (optional)

½ tsp. baking soda

1 Tbsp. blackstrap molasses or agave nectar

1 cup carrot baby food (about two small jars)

½ cup shredded carrot

¼ cup water (leave out if the batter is runny)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray mini muffin pans with non-stick spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, nutritional yeast, wheat germ, flax, hemp seeds and
baking soda.

Add carrots, baby food, molasses or agave nectar and water, mixing well.

Scoop batter into the muffin pans and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove and let cool completely before serving. Store in the fridge.

Makes approximately two dozen mini muffins.

Variations:
Biscuits- Eliminate baking soda. Knead into a stiff dough, adding ¼ cup of flour at a time
until it can be rolled out without sticking to the rolling pin (add a bit of water if it gets too
dry). Roll out onto a floured surface to ¼ inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters or knife
and bake on a greased cookie sheet until crispy.
Cookies- Add ¼ cup of flour at a time until dough is firm enough to form into balls. Place
dough balls on a greased cookie sheet and press flat with your hand or a fork. Bake until
crispy.
Bagels- Make the same as the cookies except do not press them flat. Dip your finger in
water and poke a hole in the middle of the dough ball. Flatten slightly to form a bagel
shape. Bake until crispy.

(That one on the bottom right is supposed to be a paw, I don't think I'm going to use that one again!)

I'm glad I got my copy when I did and am looking forward to cooking up more paw lickin' good treats for my pups!