This Carrot Cake for Dogs is an easy, healthy dog cake recipe perfect for celebrating your dog’s birthday. It’s easy to make in one bowl and packed with good nutrients for your dog’s skin and body.
If you love carrot cake, you might wonder if you can share this sweet treat with your dog. The answer might be yes, but only if you make a dog-friendly version that is free of sugar, raisins, nuts, and other ingredients that can be harmful to your pup so it’s generally better to make a special one just for your furry friend.
In this post, I will show you how to make a simple and healthy carrot cake for dogs that your furry friend will love.
A dog carrot cake is a small cake recipe made with ingredients similar to regular carrot cake to deliver a similar flavor but with only ingredients that are safe for your dogs. Therefore, a dog carrot cake contains minimal to no sugar, no nutmeg, or dried raisins that are toxic for dogs.
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to make the cake batter are:
- Eggs – Cooked eggs are safe for dogs and an excellent source of proteins.
- Natural Peanut Butter – Peanut Butter is a safe treat for dogs as long as it doesn’t contain additives like sugar-free sweeteners. Xylitol, for example, is extremely toxic to your furry friend.
- Honey – This is totally optional, but for a birthday, a few teaspoons in a cake are fine. However, feel free to use mashed banana or applesauce instead for a natural sweetener in your dog cake.
- Canola Oil – or other dog-friendly vegetable oils.
- Baking Soda – Better than baking powder that, even in small, can upset a dog’s tummy.
- Oat Flour or flour – Oat flour is a healthier choice for your furry pet. It’s packed with fiber, wholegrain, and protein.
- Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats
- Shredded Carrots – Prefer carrots freshly grated.
For a dog-friendly carrot cake the best healthy dog frosting is made from three simple ingredients that dogs love:
- Steamed Potatoes – peeled
- Milk or water
- Plain Greek Yogurt – unsweetened
How To Make Carrot Cake For Dogs
Here’s a delicious cake for dogs loaded with carrots.
- A regular carrot cake is frosted with cream cheese frosting: and it contains cream cheese, powdered sugar, and butter. I advise against using these ingredients for your dog. First, cream cheese is high fat, and even if plain cream cheese in small amounts is ok, your dog won’t digest it too well.
- In a medium bowl, mash the three ingredients with a fork until smooth. Use the potato yogurt frosting as a cake frosting.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease a 5-inch round cake pan with oil. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, peanut butter, oil, and honey if used. Stir until the wet ingredients’ consistency is creamy and smooth.
- Then, whisk in the oat flour, baking soda, and rolled oats, and when thick and smooth, fold in the grated carrots.
- Stir to incorporate and pour the carrot cake mixture into the prepared 5-inch cake pan.
- You can use two 5-inch pans as well for a layered cake. If you divide the batter into two pans, the baking time would be around 25 minutes.
- You can bake this recipe in a muffin pan if you don’t have mini cake pans. It fills about four muffins.
- Bake on the center rack of the oven at 350°F (180°C) until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the dog carrot cake cool down on a wire rack for a few hours at room temperature before frosting it with the mashed potato frosting.
- When the cake has cooled, slice it in two or three layers to make a layered dog cake.
- Spread some frosting between each layer, add the second cake layer on top of the first, and repeat this until the cake is assembled.
- Add more dog frosting on the top.
- Finally, decorate with some dog food, or dog treats – try my homemade 3 ingredient dog treat recipe if you like.
Offering Cake To A Dog
You shouldn’t let your dog eat the entire cake at once. Even if it looks small, it’s a high-calorie food to offer in one meal. It’s ok to let the dog dig in on special days, like their birthday, as a special treat.
But this cake is for special occasions only. It’s not a fully-balanced meal replacement, as peanut butter is still high in saturated fats for dogs. After the dog has eaten a few bites, remove the cake and save leftovers for later.
Storage Instructions
Store leftovers in the refrigerator in a sealed box for up to 3 days. Or freeze the portions and thaw them in the fridge the day before serving.
Swap Suggestions
Here are some ingredient substitution ideas if you need them.
- Oat Flour – You can replace oat flour with all-purpose wheat flour or whole wheat flour.
- Honey is optional and can be removed from the recipe for a sugar-free dog cake. Another safe option in small amounts is natural maple syrup.
- Nut-Free – Sunflower seed butter is safe for dogs, use instead of peanut butter if needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are my answers to your most frequent questions about this dog carrot cake recipe.
No, a regular carrot cake usually contains unsafe and toxic ingredients like nutmeg and dried raisins. Plus, cakes for humans are high in sugar and saturated fat in their frosting, which is unhealthy for your dogs.
Absolutely yes, oats are wholegrain cereals full of folates, zinc, and vitamin E – an excellent antioxidant for dogs’ heart health.
Yes, carrots are a great healthy snack or add-on to dogs’ meals for many reasons.
First, it’s high in fiber and low in calories, so it keeps hungry dogs full quickly.
Plus, it’s a hard, crunchy vegetable good for their teeth.
Finally, carrots are high in beta-carotene (vitamin A) good for a dog’s vision and immune systems.
Not all dogs digest almonds very well, not as well as peanuts, so the best choice for dogs when it comes to nuts is always peanuts.
Also, note that macadamia is toxic to dogs, so don’t use macadamia butter.
Most oils are safe for dogs, but sunflower seed oil is one of the best, as it’s low in saturated fat and vitamin A.
Next, the safest oils for dogs are flaxseed oil – rich in omega 3 and 6, coconut oil – higher in saturated fat but easy to digest by dogs, fish oil, and cod liver oil.
More Dog Recipes
Below I listed my top favorite dog recipes for you to try next.
Carrot Cake For Dogs
Ingredients
- 2 large Eggs
- â…“ cup Peanut Butter
- 1 tablespoon Honey or maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons Sunflower Seed Oil or melted coconut oil or flaxseed oil
- ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ¼ cup Flour
- ¼ cup Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats
- ½ cup Shredded Carrots
Frosting
- 7 oz Potatoes stemaed, cooled
- 2-3 tablespoon Milk
- ¼ cup Greek Plain Yogurt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃). Grease a 5-inch round cake pan with oil. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs, peanut butter, oil, and honey if used. Whisk until smooth and creamy.
- Whisk in oat flour, baking soda, and rolled oats.
- Fold in grated carrots and stir to incorporate.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the center rack of the oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown and a pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool down on a wire rack for a few hours before frosting.
Frosting
- Place the frosting ingredients into a small bowl, mash until creamy.
- Cut the carrot cake into two layers lengthwise and spread the frosting between both layers and on the top one.
- Decorate the cake with extra grated carrots.
- Store leftovers for up to 3 days in the fridge in an airtight container.
This was awesome! I halved the cake recipe for my pupper and only made the cake portion. I have a little bone shaped silicone dish and this baked up very well in it. The cake had a shiny top so very pretty even without “frosting”. Thank you for sharing such a simple recipe that made me feel good to give to my dog! No upset tummies. I’d love to share the picture if I could.