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 😂:
-
Tender crumb that’s soft and fluffy
-
Moist, not dry – no pooch will ever choke from dry cake in MY house!
-
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!)
Hungry for more? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow along on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for all of the latest updates.
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….
Hi Nagi and team,,, can we freeze these before we put the “icing” on?
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.
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!!
Hubby and I get Doodle sit for my best friends dog and we adore Bailey Marie. So when I saw this I had to make some for her. As I hate baking and have absolutely no decorating skill, I left off the “paw”sting. They came out of the oven looking perfect and smelling great. Bailey almost took off my fingers when I have her a piece! She gobbled it in seconds! Then waited patiently for more. Hubby came home and ate 2 before I told him they were pupcakes. He didn’t care and said they were really nice as they aren’t too sweet. And he’s happy for me to make a batch even if Bailey isn’t having a sleepover at our house!
For everyday treats, I would either make them in mini muffin tins or pour only half as much in each regular tin and make twice as many.
Bailey Marie says “Woof you very much, Nagi! And Woof Woof to Dozer!!!”
Can wait to make these for our dogs ! Just wondering if the calories are correct on the nutrition info ? 40 Cals ? Seems like it should be more. Does that include the frosting too ?
I made this and my Shih Tzu mix dog loved it but it was very time consuming and at least for me it took way more than 40 minutes. I also added some bacon on the top for her 5th birthday.
Can this cake be stored outside of the fridge if we don’t use the frosting?
Thanks so much for this recipe , we made the large cake last year and this year we made the pupcakes for Indiana the beagles 6th birthday. Thanks for sharing your cake recipe Dozer x
Dozer says “woof” to Indiana and asks why he wasn’t invited to have cake!! 🦮🎂!!! N x
Made a batch for Rosas 6th Birthdaypawty tomorrow.
Thank you for your recipe.
Dozer looks so handsome.
Happy birthday Rosa!! xx Nagi & Dozer!!
I’ve made a batch of 48 of these for my friend who has a pet shop. Super Easy to make and looking forward to making more 🙂
Oh I would LOVE to see a photo of that!! Put one on my Facebook page in the comments if you have one! N x
Hi, can you use unsweetened applesauce instead of oil?
I haven’t tried that Nicole – let me know how it turns out! N x
My puppies favorite! Made these for their first birthday, and they loved them! And I love that the ingredients are pup friendly, yet apparently tasty! Thank you for sharing this recipe.
I cant wait to try this recipe. Duke is 8 yrs old and 138lbs. He is a Mastadore. And he loves his treats
Big wet sloppy licks to Duke from Dozer!! N x
Does the nutritional information include the frosting? Do u know what it is without frosting?
Yes the nutrition info contains the frosting and no I didn’t separate it out – sorry!! N x
Hi there Nagi! What can I use instead of bananas, my dog is allergic.
Making these for a 3 year old pup party. Do you think the frosting could be made using sweet potatoes instead of regular ones?
I think that would probably work Amy! N x
Hello! I made these for my girl’s gotcha day, and she LOVED them! I was wondering, would it be alright for me to sell these to raise money?
I’m sure the lucky dogs who get them will enjoy them! N x
Oh yes, I’m sure they will! Thank you so much!