Baking - dog biscuits, peanut butter cake and kick-ass trail mix

With my first open Saturday (an open weekend, in fact) in six weeks, I was itching to bake.

First up was a batch of dog biscuits for my husky friends. I'm running with them on Sunday afternoon. I found a basic dog biscuit mix online and modified it. They're pretty good!

Lisa's Husky Treats

• 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup biltong powder 
• 1 Knorr Stock Pot (beef)
• approx 1 cup warm water 

Mix ingredients together to form a firm dough (add more flour/water as needed). Roll into thick sausages. Refrigerate for 10 minutes before cutting into 1cm slices. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Variations: use only oats (2.5 cups) if your dog is sensitive to wheat; substitute 1/2 stock cube or granules for the stock pot.

A friend shared a 'paleo breakfast bar' recipe with me. It comes out more like a cake than a bar. Again, I modified the recipe according to what I had on hand.

Peanut butter cocoa cake 
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used Yum Yum crunchy)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda (aka baking soda)
100g papaya

Beat all ingredients together, pour into greased baking dish (batter should be around 1.5cm thick). Cook at 180C for 15-20 min.

Variations: use another nut butter (almond, macadamia) instead of peanut; substitute mashed banana for the papaya (I didn't have any bananas on hand).

It's quite a light, fluffy cake. Total grams going into the oven was around 240g and coming out around 200g.
Doing the math on the ingredients and the after-cooking mass... it looks like the nutritional count is around:

per 100g
Protein: 20.2g
Carb: 15g
Fat: 44g

I'd say a portion is around 30g (nice dessert treat actually).
 
per 30g portion
protein: 6g
carb: 4.5g
fat: 13g

Next, I re-worked my trail mix to give it a kick. I like trail mix but I don't eat it every day and it can be a bit 'bland'. I've previously made nut-date-seed balls, a lovely raw, vegan snack. Rolling the mix into balls is a pain in the butt, so I went for pressed squares instead. For the ingredients, I just pulled nuts and bits out of my trailmix container, whizzed it in my food processor, added cocoa and ba-ba-ba-boom! - trail mix, only better.

Lisa's kick-ass trail mix bites (no-bake snacks)

I made these really randomly so my recipe below is definitely not to be followed strictly. Make up according to your tastes.

• 60g macadamia nuts
• 30g Brazil nuts
• 30g almonds (raw, unblanched)
• 15g sunflower seeds
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 25g dates

Soak the dates in boiling water until soft. Put nuts, sunflower seeds and cocoa powder into a food processor. Process until finely ground. 

Squeeze excess water from the dates and add to the mix. Process until well mixed. Add a little water if needed. You're aiming for a firm 'paste' texture.

Place into a dish and press firmly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then cut into squares. Store in a sealed container in the fridge.

Variations: You need around 120g of nuts - you can use just one kind of nut or a mix. If you'd like this to be sweeter, add more dates. To make it more chocolatey, add more cocoa. Including coconut flakes (or desiccated coconut) is another option.

Looking at the nutritional content if the ingredients...

per 100g

protein: 12.5g

carbs: 23.6g

fat: 55.6g

I'd say a nice bite portion is around 15g.

per 15g portion

protein: 1.9g

carbs: 3.6g

fat: 8.4g

Yum-yum!