With Halloween out of the way, it’s time to start getting in to the Christmas spirit! We got our paws stuck in with a spot of festive baking with The Innocent Pet.
The Innocent Pet is a family-run business in Yorkshire, creating treats for cats and dogs with a unique air-drying system. We love The Innocent Pet for their handmade treats made with quality British ingredients, honest and easy to understand labeling, and their drive to become even more sustainable.
The brand has released their fabulous Christmas range, featuring The Innocent Hound Christmas Cake Mix and The Innocent Hound Christmas Treat Collection. We decided to spend one rainy afternoon baking the Christmas Cake, and decorating it with the treats.
The Innocent Hound branding is absolutely gorgeous, complete with a greyhound logo inspired by their own dogs, Bongo and Mash. The festive wreath design surrounds a cut out window so you can see the product, which demonstrates transparency within the brands ethos, also seen in their honest labeling. The Innocent Pet is a brand I can trust, wholeheartedly.
The Innocent Pet Christmas Cake Mix just needs two eggs and 40ml of water – and is super easy to make – even your dog could do it. Made with British turkey and cranberry, it really encapsulates pet-safe festive flavours of the season.
To bake the cake, I emptied the two pouches from the mix into a metal bowl, adding two eggs and the 40ml of water. The pouches comprise of the air-dried turkey, cranberries, chopped apple and grain free flour – so even great for dogs with allergies.
I pre-heated the oven on Gas Mark 5 before mixing the ingredients until fully combined. The Innocent Pet recommend using a six-inch cake tin or six to eight cupcake cases, but we used a small loaf tin. I greased the tin with some butter before scooping in the mixture and spreading to the edges.
I placed the cake into the centre of the oven and popped the kettle on for a cup of tea, whilst I waited 25 minutes for the cake to bake. Phoebe and Frank were thrilled they got to lick the mixing bowl clean of the tasty air-dried turkey whilst their festive loaf cake baked away in the oven.
Once done in the oven, I removed the cake from the tin to cool. It came out pretty much whole bar a small chunk at the end – entirely due to my poor greasing skills. The yuletide treat genuinely smelled good enough to eat – there’s no wonder The Scamps were going crazy! After it had cooled, I ‘glued’ it back together with some xylitol-free peanut butter and it was as good as new.
I decorated the cake with some peanut butter and topped with some of The Innocent Hound Christmas Treats to complete the design. Phoebe and Frank taste tested the treat, and if my dogs were Paul Hollywood, I’d have been getting a handshake. What’s great is that the cake can then be sliced and frozen for future treats, meaning you could bake now and save for Christmas!
Mixing the ingredients took less than five minutes, and there was no mess whatsoever, and no faffing weighing out ingredients. The only dishes that needed washing were the mixing bowl, a spoon and the loaf tin, too! It really was a fuss-free, easy and no-mess bake that provided a really beautiful quality cake that will make the perfect post-roast pud on Christmas Day.
And speaking of December 25, will your pup be unwrapping The Innocent Hound Christmas Treat Collection? Inside are two types of air-dried meaty treats: Turkey and Cranberry Triangles, and Venison and Apple Bites.
The festive recipes have already gone down a treat in our house – pardon the pun – and are a brilliant high-value treat for training with.
The Turkey and Cranberry Triangles include 60% british turkey, alongside sweet potato, vegetable glycerine, potato, minerals and cranberry. The Venison and Apple bites have an even higher meat content, with 80% venison, with vegetable glycerine and apple.
These come in a pink packaging with the same kind of window to see the treats. We like to be able to see the size of treats when buying for The Scamps with them being a bigger breed, so we can see if they’re bite-sized. The packaging is gorgeous, and any pup would be lucky to find a box under the tree this Christmas (unless the sniff it out beforehand!)
Check out our IGTV video below to see just how easy it was to bake The Innocent Hound Christmas Cake Mix:
