Recipes for Homemade Cakes Dogs Can Eat

When making a cake for your pooch, you can use most recipes for human cakes, muffins or cupcakes, making pup-appropriate substitutions and adjustments to the ingredients. Skip the sugar or substitute a teaspoon or two of honey in the cake recipe instead. Substitute beef or chicken broth for water to give the cake a meaty taste your dog will love. Avoid recipes that call for high-fat ingredients like lard or shortening in favor those that include vegetable oil instead. Vegetable oils such as sunflower, safflower or grape seed oil provide your pup with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

When creating the cake batter, consider substituting healthier alternatives for ingredients like white flour in your cake recipe. Whole wheat flour and oat flour add healthy fiber to your pup's diet and you can substitute out half of the white flour in a cake recipe for them instead. Cornmeal is healthy for dogs, and you can use it to make an unsweetened cornbread cake for your pup. Substitute the cornmeal in a basic cornbread recipe with flax seed meal and you can create a cake that's both tasty for your pooch and healthy for his skin and coat, recommends Modern Dog Magazine.

Add a bit of canned dog food, an extra egg, cooked chopped liver or chicken to your cake batter for an added amount of healthy protein and some savory, rather than sweet, flavor. To give your pup's diet a fiber boost, you can include fresh fruit or vegetables in the cake batter, like pieces of apple, banana or carrots. For this reason, fruit- or vegetable-based recipes, such as those for carrot cake or banana muffins work well for making Max a cake.

Whether you're making a full-size cake or canine "pup-cakes," use simple ingredients like peanut butter or cream cheese to frost the top of the cake. Yogurt or even mashed potatoes also work well in giving the cake a finished frosted look. Consider pairing mashed potato frosting with a meat-flavored cake and peanut butter or cream cheese frosting with a fruit-flavored one. Decorate the cakes with pieces of fresh vegetables for color, such as carrots, peas or broccoli. A few dog treats, whole or crumbled, also can add a decorative, yet tasty, touch to the final cake.

When making a dog cake recipe for your pup, never include ingredients such as chocolate or the artificial sweetener known as xylitol. Both of these ingredients are toxic to canines, according to VCA Animal Hospitals. You can substitute carob for chocolate. A bit of applesauce or canned pumpkin adds natural sweetness, fiber and flavor to your cake without having to add any sweeteners.