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Home » Recipes » Desserts

Mini Dog Birthday Cake

By Erin · September 1, 2016 · Updated August 11, 2020 · 220 Comments

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Vegetarian
Mini Dog Birthday Cake | the perfect way to celebrate your pup's special day! | thealmondeater.com

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclaimer. 

What better way to celebrate your pup's special day than with this Mini Dog Birthday Cake?! Complete with peanut butter and cheese and over 87 five star ratings, it's sure to please!

dog eating cake

 

This mini dog birthday cake is a huge hit, because dogs deserve cake on their birthday! My baby turns TWO today—like, how? I figured she deserved a dog birthday cake this year. Though my personal favorite cake is my chocolate vegan birthday cake, it's not exactly dog-friendly, so I figured I should make a separate recipe for Layla.

I'm completely biased, but Layla is simply the best. She keeps me company all day every day while I work from home, she has an adorable underbite, she increases my daily step count thanks to having to walk her, and she brings so much joy into my life.

Oh, and if your pup loves this recipe, be sure to check out my pumpkin dog cake, too, along with other dessert recipes.

Recipe features

  • This recipe has 85 five star ratings and counting!
  • It's made with peanut butter, pumpkin and topped with cheese -- all of your dog's favorite foods
  • It's easy to make, and is shareable too


cake ingredients with text overlay

Ingredient notes

Like most dogs, Layla's a big fan of pumpkin and peanut butter, so I knew I needed to include those things. This dog birthday cake is quite similar to a human cake but with less sugar.

  • all purpose flour
  • coconut oil - or any kind of oil
  • egg
  • honey - or sub maple syrup
  • canned pumpkin
  • applesauce
  • peanut butter
  • yogurt

Step-by-step instructions

Step 1: Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, stir the flour and baking soda together and set aside.

Step 2: Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, eggs, pumpkin, peanut butter, and honey. Then, combine the wet and dry ingredients.

wet cake ingredients in a bowl

Step 3: Bake. Divide the batter into two greased 4" cake pans, then bake the cakes for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick is clean. Wait for the cakes to come to room temperature before icing them.

cake in a cake pan

Tips

Substitutions:

  • Flour: This recipe calls for all purpose flour, but you could also use whole wheat flour. I haven't tried it with any sort of gluten free flour before, but again, I'm going to assume a gluten free all purpose flour would work well if your dog eats a grain-free diet.
  • Oil: Coconut oil tends to be my oil of choice, but it can also be on the pricey side. Canola oil works just fine and I promise your dog won't know the difference 😉
  • Yogurt: The icing for this cake is made with Greek yogurt and peanut butter. If your dog doesn't like yogurt and/or if you're worried about it upsetting their stomach (it shouldn't!), you could try using just peanut butter. It'll be stickier, but still tasty.

Questions? TONS of people have made this recipe, so be sure to read the comments for additional tips!

dog on a chair

cake topped with cheese

This dog birthday cake is one of the most popular recipes on this site, so if you make this recipe, be sure to leave a comment or, even better, tag @thealmondeater on Instagram/Instagram stories--I LOVE seeing your creations, especially when dogs are involved!

More pumpkin recipes

  • Pumpkin Smoothie Bowl
  • Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats
  • Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Want even more dog cake recipes? This article from Play Bark Run has a great list of dog-friendly cake recipes.

If you made this recipe, be sure to leave a comment and star rating below. Thanks!

dog eating cake

Mini Dog Birthday Cake

Celebrate your pup's special day with this Mini Dog Birthday Cake, complete with peanut butter AND cheese!
4.98 from 162 votes
Print Pin Rate
Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes minutes
Servings: 4
Author: Erin

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ cup coconut oil melted
  • 1 egg
  • ⅓ cup honey preferably raw
  • ¼ cup canned pumpkin
  • ¼ cup applesauce
  • ¼ cup peanut butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

for the icing:

  • ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
  • ¼ cup peanut butter
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350°.
  • Grease two 4" cake pans with a bit of coconut oil and set aside.
  • In a large bowl, combine flour and baking soda; set aside.
  • Melt coconut oil in a saucepan over low-medium heat.
  • While coconut oil is melting, whisk egg, honey, pumpkin, applesauce, peanut butter, and vanilla together in a large bowl using an electric mixer. Last, stir in the melted coconut oil.
  • Fold the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine.
  • Pour batter evenly into the two pans, pounding them on the countertop a few times to the batter lays flat. Place the cake pans on a baking sheet and the baking sheet in the oven.
  • Bake cakes for 20-30 minutes**, or until a toothpick comes out clean or mostly clean.
  • Let the cakes sit in the pans for 10 minutes before running a knife along the edges and flipping them over onto a cooling rack. Wait until cakes are completely cool before icing.

for the icing:

  • Stir yogurt and peanut butter together

assembly:

  • Slice the tops of both cakes off (the "dome" part) and then lay the cut edges together, placing a bit of icing in between. Top the cake with additional icing. Additionally, if you want to cover the entire cake with icing (rather than just the top and middle), just double the icing ingredients.
  • Top the cake with cheese to make your pup's special day that much better!

Video

Notes

Yogurt: Try to buy yogurt with the least amount of sugar if possible
**Cook times vary. My oven takes forever to heat up, so the cakes took about 30 minutes, but I recommend checking yours after 20 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 552kcal | Carbohydrates: 58g | Protein: 16g | Fat: 31g | Saturated Fat: 16g | Cholesterol: 42mg | Sodium: 490mg | Potassium: 351mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 29g | Vitamin A: 2442IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 56mg | Iron: 3mg
Did you Make this Recipe? Tag me Today!Leave a comment below and tag @thealmondeater on Instagram!
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About Erin

Erin is the recipe developer, writer and photographer behind the healthy food blog, The Almond Eater. She's been blogging since 2014 and loves to create food for many different diets, including vegan, gluten free and/or Whole30 recipes.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sunny Barr says

    February 06, 2024 at 8:09 am

    This dog cake recipe was a hit with the dogs at a birthday party for my BFF’s dogs and my puppy.
    This cake is definitely a winner❣️

    Reply
    • Erin says

      February 06, 2024 at 12:15 pm

      Thanks so much! Glad it was a hit!

      Reply
  2. Jordan says

    January 27, 2024 at 1:32 pm

    5 stars
    We use this every year for our two yorkie's (brothers) birthdays! We use little silicone bone molds. This year, due to health issues they had to change to a gluten free diet. We tried subbing 1 cup of almond flour for the 1 cup of white flour - and it was too moist of a cake for the little silicone bone molds (but maybe works great for bigger cake pans). So, then we tried 1 and 1/4 cup of almond flour for the white flour - and it worked wonderfully in the little silicone bone molds! Please consider adding this to your note section in the recipe! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Shawnee says

    January 27, 2024 at 11:12 am

    5 stars
    Instead of applesauce I just mashed bananas and it worked perfectly!! I also used 1 9” cake pan and made a single tier cake. My dog loved it and I shared it with his brother who loved it even more

    Reply
    • Erin says

      January 29, 2024 at 1:10 pm

      That's a great idea! Thanks so much Shawnee!

      Reply
  4. Jackie says

    January 17, 2024 at 5:00 pm

    Could to have piece yourself?

    Reply
    • Erin says

      January 18, 2024 at 5:15 pm

      You could, though it hardly has any sugar so I'm not sure how tasty it'd be.

      Reply
  5. Renata says

    December 13, 2023 at 10:04 am

    5 stars
    Recipe was great!! I used mashed carrots instead of pumpkin and left out the vanilla. Came out beautifully and the dogs loved it

    Reply
    • Erin says

      December 14, 2023 at 8:37 am

      YUM -- happy to hear the pups liked the cake!

      Reply
  6. John Malluwe says

    December 02, 2023 at 4:48 pm

    5 stars
    Will try it for my dog's birthday and post it here https://tinyminibig.com 🙂

    Reply
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