From The House of Edward

Biscuits

I love to cook. Really. At night, I often curl up in bed with a cookbook, reading it like a novel. I have cooked dinners for family, dinners for friends, for old palates and young ones, for the famous and the shy, never tiring of the process nor the effort. Always, when I am happily about the business of cooking or baking, Edward and Apple are with me. Dozing on the kitchen rug, sitting by the stove, smelling the aromas, hoping for a taste. They are wonderful companions for any chef.

A couple of weeks ago, much to their surprise, all the measuring and stirring, the beating and kneading, the delicious smells floating through the air, were all exclusively for them. For you see, I made homemade dog biscuits for the very first time. So much fun to make, and so easy. The biscuits had to dry in the oven overnight, and at breakfast the next morning I must confess that I was rather amusingly nervous as I waited to see if Edward and Apple approved of my creations. Edward sniffed his. This was something new, after all. He looked at Apple. Then he grabbed his fat biscuit and dove under the table, followed immediately by Apple. They both munched away, sending satisfying crunchy sounds up to my ears. I was thrilled.

If you have dogs and love to cook, I encourage you to give these a try. The recipe is quite easy and it makes a gracious plenty of biscuits. I’ll be making more tomorrow and am considering adding a bit of grated carrot to the mixture. Edward loves carrots.

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Dog Biscuits

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cup all-purpose (or unbleached) flour

2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup skim milk powder

1 tablespoon (or 1 package) dry yeast

3 1/2 cups lukewarm chicken or meat broth

1 egg beaten with about 2 tablespoons water (for egg wash)

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease cookie sheets. (I baked them on parchment paper, so I skipped this messy step.)

Mix together all dry ingredients.

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm chicken or meat broth. Let yeast broth mixture set 10 min. Then stir in flour mixture until a soft dough is formed. If the dough is too sticky you can add more flour.

Roll resulting dough out to about 1/4" thick. Pull dough apart into biscuit sized pieces and brush them with egg wash.

Bake on greased cookie sheets at 350F for 45 min. Then turn off oven and leave in overnight to finish hardening.

NOTE: As I said, these make quite a lot of biscuits. I put some in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until the dogs finished the ones in their biscuit jar. They would also freeze well. Just let them thaw overnight.

Painting above: Winter Sunshine, 1940 by Phillis Walters