Mini Dog Birthday Cake

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Reader Rating
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 4

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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!

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

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!

4.98 from 172 votes

Mini Dog Birthday Cake

Servings: 4
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes
Total: 40 minutes
Celebrate your pup's special day with this Mini Dog Birthday Cake, complete with peanut butter AND cheese!

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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

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?Leave a comment and star rating below!
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Welcome! I’m Erin, author of the Almond Eater.

Here, you'll find recipes for all diet types, because I believe that healthy food should be delicious without being complicated.

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4.98 from 172 votes (53 ratings without comment)

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241 Comments

  1. Ashli says:

    5 stars
    Our dog, Walter LOVED his birthday cake; but the kids loved it as well!

  2. Cake Delivery Nepal says:

    My other dog didn’t like it very much but my older dog enjoyed it.
    Thanks for the recipe !!!

  3. Thomas says:

    5 stars
    Awesome! Loving your recipe, searching and catching it at your blog, this is great. I’ll try it this weekend for a special day, hope everything looks good. Thanks for your recipe

  4. Emily says:

    5 stars
    My puppers loved this recipe! I made it into cupcakes for his birthday and it was a hit! Thank you!

  5. Kimberly says:

    5 stars
    We made this for Loki‘s birthday last year and loved it so much that everyone saying this year we have to have the same recipe don’t change a thing so I just found it again thank you so much for sharing this

    1. Erin says:

      That’s amazing! I’m glad it’s your go-to dog cake recipe 🙂

    2. Lesley says:

      We also made this cake for our Loki to celebrate his 2nd Birthday and boy did he love it. We did however top with plain 35% Cream whipped/ Whipping Cream to try keeping the big guys calorie intake low as he’s on a diet.😂😂😂
      This recipient is a keeper for sure!

  6. Jessica Luther says:

    Erin thank you so much for the recipe. Our Harley will be 1 in October so I thought I’d look around for a recipe. This one sounds like a winner!

  7. Lina says:

    5 stars
    Mini Dog Birthday Cake recipe is great! To be honest, I’m not good at cooking but I like them, they give me joy and excitement every time I finish the dishes, which is a great thing. With your recipe, I just need to follow the instructions and the rest is simple. Thanks for sharing!

  8. Denise M says:

    5 stars
    Such a fantastic recipe. I made this cake for my aussies first birthday! He LOVED it! I wasn’t sure how yogurt and peanut butter would mix up but the icing was a wonderful piping consistency so I got a little fancy and piped a shell border with stars! Haha

  9. Jenna Travels says:

    5 stars
    Brilliant! Thanks for this post. I’m definitely going to be trying this.

  10. Danielle says:

    5 stars
    My dog LOVED this cake. I garnished it with mini milk bones and it looked adorable. I’m glad there were leftovers—she gets so excited when i pull some out of the fridge for her!