Pupcakes piled high with dog friendly frosting to celebrate Dozer’s 8th birthday! Easy dog cupcakes made with banana and peanut butter – the smell drives them crazy! The crowning glory is fluffy frosting made with no butter, no cream cheese, sugar free. Aren’t you dying to know the secret?? 😉
Pupcakes – dog cupcakes with fluffy frosting!
Dogs eat anything, but in my world, that’s no reason to lower the bar! So these cupcakes are everything you want in YOUR cupcakes – except they’re sugar free and made with dog friendly ingredients 😂:
Tender crumb that’s soft and fluffy
Moist, not dry – no pooch will ever choke from dry cake in MY house!
Peanut butter banana smell that dogs go crazy over
As for the frosting? The secret ingredient is potato made creamy with yogurt and sweetened with honey! Far better for dogs than using copious amounts of butter, cream cheese and icing sugar used in normal fluffy frostings.
The thought of potato frosting mightn’t appeal to US. But pooches love it!
What you need for pupcakes
Here’s what goes in these cupcakes – these are all dog friendly ingredients. It won’t upset your dogs’ stomache and you won’t have a mess to clean up on your lawn tomorrow (sorry to gross you out 😂).
Dozer ate 5 of these yesterday, and 4 the day before (many photo and video retakes!) and it didn’t affect his digestion at all.
How to make dog cupcakes
The making part is no different to making your favourite blueberry muffins – ie super duper easy. Except you might have extra unwanted “help” in the kitchen if you let your pooch get involved…. (wait until you see Dozer “helping” in the recipe video!!)
Frosting for dog cupcakes
The secret ingredient in the creamy, fluffy frosting you see on these cupcakes is potato. A proven hit used in last years’ birthday cake for Dozer’s birthday!
You’ll see plenty of dog cakes and cupcake recipes online with sky-high swirls of frosting made with loads of high fat ingredients like cream cheese and peanut butter. Looks great. Bad for dogs.
At most, you’d limit it to a smear on each cupcake – which pooches wouldn’t complain about, but lacks the wow factor visually.
So I use potato instead. Made creamy with yogurt plus water, and a touch of honey to sweeten it = perfect piping consistency, looks totally authentic and far better for dogs than cream cheese so you can use plenty.
You and I wouldn’t eat it. But your dog is going to LOVE it!
What goes in dog friendly “frosting” for Pupcakes
Here’s what you need:
How to make Pupcake frosting
The trick here is to cook the potatoes until very, very soft – literally fall apart – so when you “whip” it up with yogurt, water and honey, it will become smooth with a fluffy buttercream frosting consistency!
Looks so real, humans will eat it!!
After last years’ hilarious incident when my friends’ husband ate Dozer’s Birthday Cake because it looked so REAL (while my friend watched silently, just for the amusement of seeing his reaction 🤣), I decided I better play it safe this year and top it with dog biscuits!!!
But actually, dog biscuit aside, these cupcakes are perfectly safe for humans to consume. They just taste rather…….interesting!!!
Virtual doggie birthday party!
Given that children aren’t allowed to have birthday parties in this new world order, it didn’t seem very fair that Dozer should have one. Also because after experiencing the carnage at last years’ party (which ended with me having to dive in to grab the cake and run away with it), I knew that the frenzy of excitement created by taking treats down to the beach with 20+ golden retrievers would cause chaos that would likely lead to inadvertent breaches of social distancing requirements!! 😂
So this year, I packed up the pupcakes and distributed them among his friends – here are a few pics of Dozer’s buddies enjoying them!!
Happy Birthday Dozer!🎉
Happy 8th birthday Dozer!! I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, that fateful day when I went out “just window shopping” for a puppy. As a pure bred golden retriever, you’re riddled with flaws with your double joints, your long legs, and your abnormally large size.
But to me, you’re perfect – and I wouldn’t have you any other way! – Nagi x
PS Wait, I lie. If you could just stop shedding fur everywhere, that would be terrific. That’s the only thing I’d change about you!
PPS Also, picking up your own 💩
Watch how to make it
Dozer “helping” me make Pupcakes….(not!)
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Pupcakes! (dog cupcakes with “frosting”)
Ingredients
Pupcakes:
- 2 ripe bananas (150g/5oz after peeling, ~2/3 cup mashed)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter , smooth or creamy (Note 1)
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour , all purpose/plain OR wholewheat/wholemeal (Note 2)
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup oil , vegetable, canola, peanut or olive oil
- 3/4 cup water
Fluffy dog friendly "frosting":
- 500g / 1lb potatoes , peeled and cut into 2 cm/1″ pieces
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1/2 cup yogurt, plain low fat (any unsweetened type) OR sour cream
- 2 – 4 tbsp water
- 12 small dog bone biscuits , for decorating (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan). Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake liners.
- Place bananas in a bowl and mash with a potato masher until smooth as you can get it.
- Add peanut butter, honey and eggs. Whisk well until smooth.
- Add flour, baking powder, oil and water. Whisk until smooth.
- Divide between cupcakes until 3/4 full. Bake 22 minutes until the top is golden, or skewer comes out clean.
- Transfer to cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes before topping with “frosting”
Frosting
- Place potato in a large pot of water. Bring to boil, then cook potato for 20 minutes until very, very soft and starting to crumble on the edges.
- Drain, then return into empty pot. Add yogurt, honey and water (starting with 2 tbsp). Beat with electric beater for 1 minute on speed 3, increasing to speed 5, for 1 minute or until smooth and creamy. Add more water if needed – it should have a soft consistency like frosting.
- Transfer to piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm / 3/5" round nozzle (Note 3 for other nozzles). Pipe in swirling motion onto cupcakes, top with dog biscuit.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
Just because this ENTIRE post is dedicated to Dozer, doesn’t mean I’m going to skip the Life of Dozer section! 😂 Here he is, on the job during this recipe video shoot. He scored many, MANY Pupcakes in carrying out his job….
Hi nagi and dozer thank you for making my 4 dogs very happy they all loved the pup cakes I made today they will eat the rest on Tuesday because its my dogs 1st birthday and he is having a party x
These were a big hit for our Ruby’s 1st birthday party! Recipe was so simple and the dogs at the party loved them so much!
I made these pupcakes to celebrate my pups 15th birthday and they were a HIT! Thank you for sharing. I will definitely be making these fantastic treats again!!!
I’m making these cupcakes for my sweet girl Tasha’s 4th birthday next week. I’m going to replace the frosting with heavy whipping cream and beat it into homemade whipped cream. All her puppy friends will be there. I hope this will be a win!
Update: just made these in preparation for her party and she’s drooling. I let her lick the mixing spatula and she loved it! It’s so easy and Tasha is excited!
We made the pupcakes for our dog Lola. Needless to say she scarffed them down.
All four of my dogs loved these pup cakes!!! One of them ate his whole, frosting and all…!! We laughed until we cried.
I did a couple of things differently to create a pipable “frosting.” I was able to pipe using a star piping tip…the frosting held its shape beautifully.
First, I let the pup cakes cool completely. You can’t frost hot sponge. I learned this from Paul Hollywood. ;))
Second, I didn’t cook the potatoes till they were crumbling, as that means they’ve taken on a lot of water and will be soggy. I cooked to doneness (knife tip easily goes in but not all the way through).
Third, I did not add water to the potato frosting—just the honey and yoghurt.
I let the “frosting” cool, then puréed it in the food processor for a nice, thick, smooth consistency.
I don’t see a place to share pics, but it looked beautiful, just like a traditional frosting.
Great recipe, and I’m freezing the leftovers for the next time I want to give them a fancy treat and don’t feel like baking!! :)) Thanks Nagi, for all your wonderful recipes!!!!
Tracy
Hello, help…I followed the frosting recipe exactly…however I had to use sour cream. I only used 2 tbsp of water. It is super runny. What could I add to it to stiffen the frosting up?
Hi Cindy, sounds like you mismeasured somewhere – the only way to thicken is to add more potato unfortunately 🙂 N x
Would I be able to use this recipe for an 18 week old puppy? I’m having a puppy shower for a friend and wanted to give the puppy a little treat as well!
Hi Tatum, their stomachs can be a little sensitive at such a young age – personally I wouldn’t. N x
Correction to my last comment, it’s an 8 week old puppy!
What kind of honey did you use? I always thought honey was bad for dogs and could paralyze them
Not as far as I know Christina – I’ve never heard that before and a lot of people use it to sweeten treats for dogs 🙂 N x
Scaled recipe down by half to make 6 cupcakes for my cocker spaniels 9th birthday today. Frosting smells a little think because of the yoghurt but she loves it. Definitely need to refridgerate. Treats for next 5 days, yay!!
I have 2 dogs. One is fussy and likes almost nothing and one eats almost everything. They both loved it! 100% would recommend. Also, I used frozen bananas and they turned out fine!
That’s great to hear Mary!! N x
Hi! Has anyone frozen these? I’d like to make ahead of time but I don’t have any experience with potato frosting (lol) so I wasn’t sure if it’d get runny or weird. Thanks! (:
Do you know of any icing recipes for dogs that do not need refrigeration? I would like to gift treats for Christmas for friends and family who live out of town. Thank you!
Hi Patti, I don’t have a recipe just yet sorry! N x
How can I make only 1 of them? Can’t give them out right now and can’t give my pup a dozen cupcakes hehe.
Hi Kaajal, you can scale the recipe down to 1 serving but you may struggle measuring small amounts of each ingredient. You could always make a half batch and freeze some for later! N x
Hi Nagi!! I made these with whole wheat flour and without the frosting
..tried one and it has a weird smell/taste to eat….like a strong flour smell?? I don’t know how to explain…is it supposed to taste good for humans? If so I think I did something wrong…maybe the flour went bad?
Hey im gonna make this tomorrow for my dog Tiny s 3rd birthday and i have three dogs so they each can have one
I made this for my dog’s birthday and he absolutely devoured them! I swapped the frosting with a cream cheese/peanut butter blend, and to me it was a lot easier. We garnished the top with a variety of treatos and shared with all his four-legged friends! 5 stars! Will definitely make them again
just made these for my golden retriever’s Snicker’s 3rd birthday today- they are cooling as we speak. We’re both anxiously awaiting for them to cool to see how he likes them!!
Made these for my pug’s 8th Birthday this weekend! (Dexter) He loved them and his furfriends did as well. It took me a few mins longer to make these but was worth it. I used more potato after reading a comment about possibly being too runny frosting. More potato helped it from being too runny.
Going to make these next week for my Charlie”s 2nd birthday and have his friend Cassie come over