Grains of Possibilities: Part Deux!

A couple of weeks back, Sarah posted recipes using a portion of the several gallons of spent grain we took from Thirsty Planet after brewing. And while those human treats looked fantastic and mouth-watering, we didn’t include the recipe for the treats our four-legged friends got to enjoy.

So, to right that wrong, here’s the recipe for super-easy peanut butter dog treat using spent grain, adapted from a recipe found on 17 Apart. I’ve also taken the liberty of adding in pictures of Ivy, who supervised the making of these treats very closely.

Peanut Butter Beer Grain Dog Treat Recipes

• Four cups of spent grain
• Two cups of whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat, I find it binds better without being too grainy)
• One cup peanut butter (I used Jif Natural Creamy Peanut Butter, which was an easy consistency to work with)
• Two eggs (organic if you have it)

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and get ready to get your hands dirty. Use a spoon to break up the yolks and stir to combine all of the ingredients. When you get to the point that a thick dough starts to come together, use your hands to knead the dough and combine the ingredients until the dough is uniform and no flour is visible. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour until you can form a ball of dough that sticks to itself.

Once you have your ball of dough, it’s time to roll it out. Using a rolling pin (or a pint glass, like I did) roll the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness. It’s easiest to break the dough up into 2-3 batches when doing this to make it easier. Once you have a sheet of dough, you can cut out shapes with cookie cutter, or use a tasting glass to make circles like I did (there’s a pattern of cooking utensils in my kitchen).

Once you have all of your shapes cut out, lay them on baking sheets. Depending on the heaviness and quality of your baking sheets, you may want to use parchment paper underneath. I wouldn’t recommend foil or greasing since the dough is so sticky.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, then reduce the oven temperature to 225 degrees and bake for another two hours. This will dry out the cookies, and make them extra-crunchy, which dogs love.

This recipe yielded 52 small cookies, which will keep for two weeks in an air-tight containers, or longer in the freezer.

Note: If you still want to make baked goods for your pups, but don’t have access for spent grains, you can try substituting in some oats, but give the dough 15-30 minute of resting time before baking to soak up some of that peanut butter goodness.

-Wendy