Mini Dog Birthday Cake
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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!
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
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.
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.
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!
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
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!
Mini Dog Birthday Cake
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup honey, preferably raw
- 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/4 cup applesauce
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
for the icing:
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
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!
Notes
Nutrition
Hi Erin!
Going to make this for my girl’s 11th birthday on Thursday. Gonna pick up a 4in cake pan, but just wanted to know if you happened to know the depth of yours that you used for this? was is 4×2 in?
Mine is 4×1.75″, but 4×2 will work just fine!
Look so cute! My daughter loves dogs, her birthday is coming soon, I will make a lovely birthday cake for my daughter. Thanks for inspiring
Made this the other day for my corgi’s 7th birthday!! Both she and her English Pointer sister loved it! I cut the recipe in half and made two cakes… one is in the freezer for the pointer’s birthday! Thanks so much!!
How long do you think these will stay for ?
You are a Gem. I love layla. And thank you so much for this tips! I cant wait to make one for my pup !
Cute cake & cute dog
Thank you so much TheAlmondDeater. I tried making mini dog birthday cake reading your article and I made it really delicious on 1st time. My daughter loved it. However, I was quite confused on some points. It would be better if you can make baking videos.
Amazing recipe!! Had such a fulfilling feeling baking this fabulous cake for my Ollie’s 3rd Birthday! I made my own apple sauce , mashed sweet potatoes instead of canned pumpkin and replaced the white flour with almond flour. The cake was so light and moist! My Westie Ollie and his fur buddies were literally bullying each other to get more cake! I doubled the recipe and baked in a round 10” pan so each furiend got to take more cake home! This is a definite keeper! It was easy and it was impressive! Thank you for this amazing recipe!
That’s amazing–I’m happy all the pups enjoyed it 🙂
Fantastic recipe.
Going to prepare this cake for my pitbull this weekend
I made this cake last year for my Beagle Ruby who was 6..I am going to make it again this year for my brother’s French Bulldog , Nugget, who will be 2 tomorrow. This was a fantastic easy to make recipe, flexible to add or remove ingredients if need be… I used banana instead of pumpkin and I added a heap of blueberries on the icing.. Ruby absolutely loved it and so did I.. perfect cake to share with your pooch. Thanks so much for this recipe.
But is there any other thing which I could substitute the peanut butter with?
Any other nut butter will work, or you could use canned pumpkin.