When The Bottled Baking Co announced the ‘launch’ of the Doggy Baking Co as an April Fools’ joke in 2021, the owners never thought it would be turned into a fully fledged business. But by August, there were three tried and tested dog biscuit baking kits sitting on their kitchen counters ready to be put out into the world.
Greg Fraser, founder of The Bottled Baking Co, had always joked about launching a range of DIY bakes for dogs, so decided it would be the perfect time to prank their 15,000+ followers.
The Instagram post read: “We’ve got some PAWSOME news to share. Due to popular demand, we are excited to launch our new range of Bottled Bakes for canine friends. Chocolate isn’t good for dogs, but there is no reason they should miss out on special occasion treats.”
The joke announcement came as millions of people welcomed dogs into their homes during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, with many ‘pandemic puppies’ celebrating their first birthdays in 2021. But little did Greg and the team know was just how much demand there would be for a doggy spin off to their successful baking business.
Greg, from Yorkshire, was one of those who got a puppy in lockdown, and said: “We originally thought it would be really funny to launch a baking mix for dogs, following the huge success of our baking mixes for kids and their grown ups.
“However, it turned out to be a viable business idea after our customers and stockists flooded our emails and messages. I founded the Bottled Baking co to create cakes with my then toddler. Now he’s a little older, and having purchased a puppy during lockdown myself, we have fun baking treats for our pooch!”
Two years on, the brand has boomed, and features a range of muffin mix pouches as well as bottled biscuit and cake mixes.
Ahead of the Easter bank holiday, we tried out the Doggy Baking Co Carrot Cake mix, which has almost everything you need to create a delicious dog-friendly cake in one easy bottle.
As the all-in-one bottle already contains wholemeal wheat flour, oats, dried carrot and baking powder – all you need from the kitchen is three large eggs, 100g Peanut Butter, 100ml Sunflower Oil and 250ml water.
Each of the mixes use human grade ingredients, which means – if you really wanted to – there’s no harm in taste testing the finished results yourself.
Each recyclable glass bottle is hand filled in Yorkshire to create the pretty layers that sit in the bottle, and it was almost too lovely to decant into my mixing bowl. It takes a bit of shaking to get all of the ingredients out, but I was soon ready to add all of the additional ingredients in one go, and give it a good mix by hand. The mixture forms a dough pretty quickly, so I preheated the oven to 190 degrees (gas mark 5) in preparation while I finished mixing.
The measurements on the instructions label are pretty spot on, but use your judgement when it comes to the dough, and add a drop more water if it feels too dry, or a bit of flour from the store cupboard if it’s a bit wet.
Once fully combined and happy with the consistency, I added a baking liner to a loaf tin and scooped in the mixture, letting Phoebe and Frank have a lick of the spoon – always the best part of baking, right?
The directions suggest 20-25 minutes on Gas Mark 5, but our cooker is on the less economical side, and therefore it did take a bit longer to bake all the way through, so more like 30-35 minutes, but you can keep an eye on it.
During this time, a puddle of drool had formed outside the oven door as the Scamps awaited their treat. After pulling it from the heat, I left it on the side – well out of paws reach – to cool down.
The loaf cake was pretty dense but still super spongy. Packed with beta-carotene, the high-fibre bake actually contributes to your dog’s normal, healthy digestion. There’s a really handy feeding guide on the Doggy Baking Co website if you need help working out how much to give your dog – and it’s freezable too, if you’re worried about it going to waste.
You could, if you wished, top the cake with a yoghurt or peanut butter icing, but we left ours perfectly plain and it was still lip-smackingly delicious, or so I observed. Phoebe wolfed hers down and licked the bowl clean of crumbs, and I don’t think Frank’s slice even touched the sides.
In all, the prep took around 15 minutes, and baking a further 30, and less than two seconds for the dogs to gobble up – so well under an hour to create this delicious celebratory bake that’s perfect for birthdays and special occasions like Easter.
Dog parents interested in purchasing a Doggy Baking Co mix and hosting their own pup pawty can grab theirs for £10.99 here.
Read more:
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- Denzel’s launch limited edition Spring treats
