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
Can I use a tin 3 inches deep as there aren’t any 4×2 inch pans in the U.K.?
Yes that should work!
Made this for my dog who turned 11 today and he LOVED it! Love that we were able to eat it as well and share the fun with him!
I love to cook! Learning and updating new recipes for daily menu makes me more interested and love my work. Today’s my lucky day, Mini Dog Birthday Cake recipe is great, just follow the instructions and everything is easy, I like that. Thanks for your sharing
Excellent! I had to make some changes because my family have but allergies. So no peanut butter. I used butternut squash and gluten free flour. I had difficulty with the measurements as we use grams or ounces. But I worked it out and doubled it to allow more batter for cupcakes. For the topping I used quark and raspberries.
For once Daisy was allowed to sit at the table for her 7th birthday, with dad holding her so she didn’t slip, she lapped the topping but struggled to bite it. Once broken it was a doddle. I have shared this on Facebook too.
That’s amazing–thanks for your comment and for sharing the recipe!
I just made them in my silicone dog bone mold, they’re pupcakes!
I can’t say enough good things about this recipe. My two dogs loved this more than their favorite treats! They lost their minds over it. I have pieces in the freezer and if I ask them if they want cake they run and jump everywhere for their cake! It is perfect!
Amazing–happy that your pups loved this cake!
I halved the recipe because I have a small dog, and got two (really tall) 2×4 inch mini rectangle cakes! I’d guess a whole recipe would make about 8 cupcakes (for those wondering).
I used butternut squash instead of pumpkin, banana instead of applesauce, omitted the vanilla, and baked in my toaster oven at 325 for 20 minutes, and still ended up with a perfect cake!
This recipe is so quick and easy and probably almost impossible to mess up. It even tasted good enough that I was happy to eat the trimmed-off tops… My dog loved it, thank you so much!
This is such a great comment–thanks for sharing all of your substitutions and I’m glad the cake is dog and human approved!
Made this today for my Charlie 3 Bday topped it off with bacon his favorite. He loved it. Very easy to make will make this every year!!
Made this for my “grand dogs” 4th Birthday. She loved it!! I had to use oil instead of coconut oil-but she didn’t seem to care. ❤️
Terrific recipe! Made it for Charlie’s 1st birthday, yesterday. He loves it. I took the trimmed muffin tops to the dog park to share with Charlie’s friends. Many owners asked me for the recipe!
That’s great–thanks for spreading the word about the recipe and for your comment!