Drip decorated Dog Birthday Cake
Another year older … but sadly not another year wiser (just like every other year)!! 😂 Ahh Dozer, you may not be known for your brains, but that’s ok. You still have your looks to get you through life, and most of all you have a heart of pure gold. ❤️ In years passed, I’ve shared a 2 layer white-frosted Dog Birthday Cake, and last year it was Pupcakes. And as he chalks up the birthdays, I feel the pressure to continue to top it year after year …! This year, I’ve decided it’s all about cake decorating. So here it is: A dog-friendly DRIP CAKE!! Whaddaya reckon??! 😇
Drip Dog Birthday Cake components
Here are the 3 parts to making this fun Drip Dog Birthday Cake:
1. Dog Birthday Cake
Ingredients in Dog Cake
Here’s what you need for the dog-friendly cake layers, crafted specifically to be sugar-free, low-oil and with all dog-friendly ingredients. It also has the smell of peanut butter – so irresistible to dogs! Someone please explain to me what the deal is with canines and peanut butter??😂
Flour – Either plain / all-purpose flour OR wholemeal / whole-wheat flour (which is more nutritious). I opted for plain flour here because it makes for paler cake layers which I thought looked prettier. However usually I use wholemeal flour, like in Dozer’s birthday Pupcakes and 2 layer Birthday Cake from previous years;Honey – For sweetness, instead of refined sugar. Maple syrup is also great;Oil – For moistness in the cake. Nobody wants their pooch to choke down a dry cake! 😂 I only use a modest amount, just 1/4 cup (65 ml) for the entire cake. You’ll never find a human cake on my website that uses such little oil, though!!Carrot – To bulk out the cake with something nutritious that blends easily into the crumb;Baking soda – The rising agent. We use quite a lot in this cake, 2.5 teaspoons. We need it in order to get the otherwise dense cake to rise. Substitute with baking powder;Peanut butter – As noted above, it adds an irresistible smell (to dogs, anyway!) to the cake.Eggs – For binding the cake crumb, without which it would just crumble everywhere. Eggs are also great nutrition for the dogs!
How to make the Dog Birthday Cake layers
This is a very simple and forgiving cake to make, with a tender and moist crumb. Nobody wants to be that dog-mama who makes a dry, bland cake for their fur baby!! 😂
2. The Dog-friendly “Buttercream Frosting” aka Whipped Potato Frosting
Using whipped potato as “buttercream frosting” on dog cakes is something regular readers have seen in Dozer’s birthday Pupcakes and two-layer Birthday Cake from previous years. It looks just like the real thing, except it’s dog-friendly! You and I wouldn’t eat it … but this is for dogs remember! Why potato? Well, there are plenty of other recipes “out there” that use combinations of things like cream cheese, peanut butter and yogurt. But I wouldn’t recommend using vast volumes of any of these ingredients on a dog cake. It’s just too heavy for a pet’s diet in my view. And I want to frost with abundance!!
Dog-friendly “Buttercream Frosting” ingredients
Here’s what you need for the pooch-friendly “buttercream frosting”. It’s just potato, yogurt and water to adjust the thickness. I make one big batch of the frosting and leave it as plain white. After I use what I need to frost between the cake layers, I colour the remaining frosting blue to use for the top and sides of the cake.
How to make Dog-friendly “Buttercream Frosting”
How to colour the “frosting”
Ingredients in Drip Frosting
Now the best part: the Drip Frosting! It might surprise you what it’s made from: cornflour / cornstarch, yoghurt and a touch of milk. This combination works a treat! Do not be tempted to substitute the yogurt with milk or water. I tried and it doesn’t work! I used a Wilton brand gel colour called Sky Blue. Gel is much more intense than liquid food colouring, and there is a much broader range of colours available. To achieve the frosting colour in the photos, I dipped a toothpick into the gel twice then smeared it onto the surface of the potato before mixing in. You will need 2 – 3 teaspoons of liquid food colouring to achieve the same intensity of colour; Mix these three ingredients together and you get the perfect drip frosting consistency – plus it’s 100% sugar-free! Adjusting the Drip Frosting consistency: You will need to tweak the consistency because the thickness / wateriness of every yoghurt will differ. So make the Drip Frosting per my recipe, then do a test using a glass or something with vertical sides to see how the frosting behaves when applied. The Drip Frosting should be thin enough so it slowly runs down the side, but thick enough so it stops, sets and holds its form partway down the cake (as pictured below), looking like a cartoon cake. You don’t want being so thin that it becomes see-through and runs all the way to the base of the cake (and likely will pool around the cake base too).
How to do the drips
Decorating the Dog Birthday Cake!
What?! After all of that, there’s MORE decorating!! Now make the surface as smooth as you can. Don’t worry about making it perfect if you are planning to decorate the top like I have, as it disguises bumps and lumps; and Don’t worry about perfection. In fact, I think it looks weird when the drips are all perfectly uniform! You want them to be irregular. 🙂 So, some long, some short, some wide, some thin. Well why not? 😇 Just a little sprinkle of sparkly balls, some bling-y candles, and a little “Happy Birthday” sign is all that’s needed to give it a celebratory finishing touch!
Was it Dozer-approved??
As long as it’s not raw kale, Dozer approves – believe me!! After hours of patience sitting through the shooting of the video, taking of the photos, finally he got the OK to eat … Not even vision impairment by way of a slipped party hat was going to stop this boy from annihilating this cake!!!
The birthday party!
I’m not going to lie. The stress of being amongst a pack of golden retrievers, known for their extreme penchant for FOOD, with a cake that smells this good (to them, anyway!) while at the beach (rather than in a controlled environment!) is not something I would put myself through if it weren’t for the sheer entertainment value of the photos I’d get to share with you!! So here they are. This was on Saturday morning at Bayview dog park (Sydney, Australia) with Dozer’s friends. It was furry sea of canine chaos! Oh the carnage, once they got stuck into the cake!!! All that effort decorating the cake … annihilated in 10 seconds flat! As with previous years, I always attempt to add some birthday jollies by popping hats on the dogs. As anyone who owns a dog knows, they tolerate them for mere seconds before ripping them off! I will never get a photo of all of them dutifully lined up with party hats on, waiting patiently for a slice of cake. Never!!
🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOZER!! 🎉
Dearest Dozer, You have been the constant in my world ever since I got you, through the ups and downs of this rollercoaster called life. I love that you’re always happy, from the instant you wake up, every single morning. That you make me laugh at your ridiculousness, that we share an unfettered obsession of all things edible, that you welcome every stranger into the house like a long lost relative, that you are unconditionally loyal. That you care not for the superficial things in life, not the toys nor the treats. You don’t need a fancy bed, a big backyard or a pool to play in. We could live in a run-down little shed in the middle of nowhere, and you’d still be as happy as you are today. Happy birthday Dozer!!! Don’t ever change. I love you with all my heart. – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
Life of Dozer
Just because today’s recipe is ALL about Dozer, you didn’t think I’d skip the Life of Dozer section, did you?? 😂 Today, we’re going Behind The Scenes from the shooting of the birthday cake recipe video!!
