Pupcakes piled high with dog friendly frosting to celebrate Dozer’s 8th birthday! Easy dog cupcakes made with banana and peanut butter – the smell drives them crazy! The crowning glory is fluffy frosting made with no butter, no cream cheese, sugar free. Aren’t you dying to know the secret?? 😉
Pupcakes – dog cupcakes with fluffy frosting!
Dogs eat anything, but in my world, that’s no reason to lower the bar! So these cupcakes are everything you want in YOUR cupcakes – except they’re sugar free and made with dog friendly ingredients 😂:
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Tender crumb that’s soft and fluffy
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Moist, not dry – no pooch will ever choke from dry cake in MY house!
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Peanut butter banana smell that dogs go crazy over
As for the frosting? The secret ingredient is potato made creamy with yogurt and sweetened with honey! Far better for dogs than using copious amounts of butter, cream cheese and icing sugar used in normal fluffy frostings.
The thought of potato frosting mightn’t appeal to US. But pooches love it!
What you need for pupcakes
Here’s what goes in these cupcakes – these are all dog friendly ingredients. It won’t upset your dogs’ stomache and you won’t have a mess to clean up on your lawn tomorrow (sorry to gross you out 😂).
Dozer ate 5 of these yesterday, and 4 the day before (many photo and video retakes!) and it didn’t affect his digestion at all.
How to make dog cupcakes
The making part is no different to making your favourite blueberry muffins – ie super duper easy. Except you might have extra unwanted “help” in the kitchen if you let your pooch get involved…. (wait until you see Dozer “helping” in the recipe video!!)
Frosting for dog cupcakes
The secret ingredient in the creamy, fluffy frosting you see on these cupcakes is potato. A proven hit used in last years’ birthday cake for Dozer’s birthday!
You’ll see plenty of dog cakes and cupcake recipes online with sky-high swirls of frosting made with loads of high fat ingredients like cream cheese and peanut butter. Looks great. Bad for dogs.
At most, you’d limit it to a smear on each cupcake – which pooches wouldn’t complain about, but lacks the wow factor visually.
So I use potato instead. Made creamy with yogurt plus water, and a touch of honey to sweeten it = perfect piping consistency, looks totally authentic and far better for dogs than cream cheese so you can use plenty.
You and I wouldn’t eat it. But your dog is going to LOVE it!
What goes in dog friendly “frosting” for Pupcakes
Here’s what you need:
How to make Pupcake frosting
The trick here is to cook the potatoes until very, very soft – literally fall apart – so when you “whip” it up with yogurt, water and honey, it will become smooth with a fluffy buttercream frosting consistency!
Looks so real, humans will eat it!!
After last years’ hilarious incident when my friends’ husband ate Dozer’s Birthday Cake because it looked so REAL (while my friend watched silently, just for the amusement of seeing his reaction 🤣), I decided I better play it safe this year and top it with dog biscuits!!!
But actually, dog biscuit aside, these cupcakes are perfectly safe for humans to consume. They just taste rather…….interesting!!!
Virtual doggie birthday party!
Given that children aren’t allowed to have birthday parties in this new world order, it didn’t seem very fair that Dozer should have one. Also because after experiencing the carnage at last years’ party (which ended with me having to dive in to grab the cake and run away with it), I knew that the frenzy of excitement created by taking treats down to the beach with 20+ golden retrievers would cause chaos that would likely lead to inadvertent breaches of social distancing requirements!! 😂
So this year, I packed up the pupcakes and distributed them among his friends – here are a few pics of Dozer’s buddies enjoying them!!
Happy Birthday Dozer!🎉
Happy 8th birthday Dozer!! I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, that fateful day when I went out “just window shopping” for a puppy. As a pure bred golden retriever, you’re riddled with flaws with your double joints, your long legs, and your abnormally large size.
But to me, you’re perfect – and I wouldn’t have you any other way! – Nagi x
PS Wait, I lie. If you could just stop shedding fur everywhere, that would be terrific. That’s the only thing I’d change about you!
PPS Also, picking up your own 💩
Watch how to make it
Dozer “helping” me make Pupcakes….(not!)
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Pupcakes! (dog cupcakes with "frosting")
Ingredients
Pupcakes:
- 2 ripe bananas (150g/5oz after peeling, ~2/3 cup mashed)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter , smooth or creamy (Note 1)
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour , all purpose/plain OR wholewheat/wholemeal (Note 2)
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup oil , vegetable, canola, peanut or olive oil
- 3/4 cup water
Fluffy dog friendly "frosting":
- 500g / 1lb potatoes , peeled and cut into 2 cm/1" pieces
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1/2 cup yogurt, plain low fat (any unsweetened type) OR sour cream
- 2 - 4 tbsp water
- 12 small dog bone biscuits , for decorating (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan). Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake liners.
- Place bananas in a bowl and mash with a potato masher until smooth as you can get it.
- Add peanut butter, honey and eggs. Whisk well until smooth.
- Add flour, baking powder, oil and water. Whisk until smooth.
- Divide between cupcakes until 3/4 full. Bake 22 minutes until the top is golden, or skewer comes out clean.
- Transfer to cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes before topping with "frosting"
Frosting
- Place potato in a large pot of water. Bring to boil, then cook potato for 20 minutes until very, very soft and starting to crumble on the edges.
- Drain, then return into empty pot. Add yogurt, honey and water (starting with 2 tbsp). Beat with electric beater for 1 minute on speed 3, increasing to speed 5, for 1 minute or until smooth and creamy. Add more water if needed - it should have a soft consistency like frosting.
- Transfer to piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm / 3/5" round nozzle (Note 3 for other nozzles). Pipe in swirling motion onto cupcakes, top with dog biscuit.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
Just because this ENTIRE post is dedicated to Dozer, doesn’t mean I’m going to skip the Life of Dozer section! 😂 Here he is, on the job during this recipe video shoot. He scored many, MANY Pupcakes in carrying out his job….
These will be on the menu for Mollie’s birthday, also a Goldie!
So good dogs loved it did take a hour and twenty minutes though 4 stars
These were an absolute hit for our doggos 9th birthday. Thanks Nagi!
Love how Dozer is helping you clean everything 😍
Sorry for this bizarre question, but why are the ends of the bananas red?
The red wax indicates the bananas are grown using the Ecoganic farming method so they are free of harmful pesticides. The bananas are dipped in a bright red food grade wax to let shoppers know they are different from every other variety.
Fantastic recipe but might be worth skipping on the baking powder it’s not the best for them! Would there be an alternative ingredient for the powder? Happy Birthday beautiful boy xx
I will make these dog friendly treats for my Goldie girl, Rosie who turns 9 soon. I just love your relationship with Dozer, mine with my girl is similar. We go every where together she brings joy to others.
These look fabulous!! I’m trying them tomorrow for my service dog’s birthday! Quick question… Can I use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes…thats what I have at home right now! Thank you! Susan
Super easy and the children and pup both woofed it down although the girls scraped the frosting off!
Hey Nagi, I made this. I used homemade chicken broth (unsalted) instead of water. Turned out great. Thanks again and love to Dozer from Athena and me.
These were great my dogs loved them! Instead of using regular potatoes I used sweet potatoes because that is all I had on hand and I omitted the honey in the frosting.
Made the pup-cakes, Huge hit with my neighbour’s and my son’s dogs.
Hi Nagi and team,,, can we freeze these before we put the “icing” on?
This is honestly the best and easiest recipe to follow. Just wondering if it is possible to freeze the Pupcakes as my doggo is obsessed and i would love to make a huge batch
Lucky dog!!!
How long would these last without frosting,not refrigerated? Would lov to send to nephew dogs in another state.
I’ve made these a few times now, and they’re always a big hit! Thank you for sharing!
I’m curious what the red bit is on your bananas? I live in Canada and I’ve never seen anything like that before.
The red wax indicates the bananas are grown using the Ecoganic farming method so they are free of harmful pesticides. The bananas are dipped in a bright red food grade wax to let shoppers know they are different from every other variety.
LOVE this recipe!!!! I cut the recipe in half and used a mini muffin pan because I have a small dog. I also grated carrot for “sprinkles” Furgie LOVES her pupcakes!!!!!
I have 2 questions: what could I use in place of honey? My husband is allergic to honey, so I don’t typically keep it in the house. My normal honey substitute is agave, but from what I can find, dogs aren’t supposed to have that. Maybe applesauce? My second question is, if I made these in a mini muffin pan (for a very small dog) what do you think the difference would be on the bake time?
I used a mini muffin pan and went 25 minutes because they didn’t look done. The muffins were fine but next time I am going to cut back to 20 minutes for a moistier muffin. Start checking for doneness at 15 minutes or so.
Super cute, wouldn’t advise using potato if your giving them to pup on a regular basis, vet says potato encourages the bloat
I wonder if using pumpkin with some flour or other type of thickener can be used for the frosting.
Wonderful recipe!! Are these people friendly as well!? They seem to be but !? Lol my granddaughter wants to make them and share with the dog!!