Adventures in Dog Biscotti

As a special treat, I attempted some dog-friendly biscotti this weekend. It’s mostly peanut butter and whole wheat, and it looked pretty easy. I ended up making 2 batches because the first one didn’t turn out so hot, and I’m pretty good in the kitchen, so here is my advice.

First of all, here’s a link to the recipe from the Rachel Ray magazine. I saw her make it on TV during a special dog show a while back. I’d just been waiting for the mood (and an occasion) to strike.

Here’s what went wrong the first time. I thought I’d be all SUPER dog mom and use organic, natural peanut butter. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve ever used natural PB, but the oils separate. Personally, I find it a @#$@# to keep the oil mixed in consistently. So, at first, the PB is most excellent — creamy, not too sweet. But, later in the jar, the oil from the top is mostly gone from prior mixing, so the last half of the jar comes out pretty dry.

So, I think that was my first mistake because the dough turned out kind of dry and split along the fault lines when I cut the log between the first and second baking. But, I soldiered on, and the pieces turned out OK. They weren’t pretty, but they held together.

I merrily went on to melt my carob chips, and when the concoction seemed a bit too thick to drizzle, I added a little water like the recipe recommends … HUGE mistake. The carob turned into a big muddy mess, more like frosting than a drizzle-able liquid. So, I figured I’d warm it up a bit more and just frost the biscotti. EVEN BIGGER mistake. The carob collapsed and turned into powder. So, I dusted the cookies a bit and gave up.

BUT, I was kind of peeved. Seriously, not to be a pain, but I’m no slouch in the kitchen, especially with baking. So, after a cooling off period (me, not the cookies), I tried again. This time with mainstream, greasy PB. I also kneaded the dough for a few minutes to prevent separation of layers after baking. That seemed to help, and the dough seemed much more moist.

Because the log is a bit unwieldy, though, I still cracked it when I slid it from the cooling rack to a cutting surface. AUGH! So, about half the batch turned out pretty, the other half … not so much.

After the second baking, I gave the carob another try, but this time, rather than melting it in the microwave, I put it in a double boiler. It came to a nice consistency, so I drizzled to the best of my ability.  It’s actually kind of hard to get a good drizzle, without first having a couple blops fall, but I did pretty well.

When I handed them out to classmates yesterday, several people asked if they were for people or dogs, so I must have pulled off something fairly appetizing. Judge for yourself. On the left, a cookie from batch 1. On the right, a better attempt from batch 2.

As a final note, I’ll just say that I think a whole cookie as they’re shown in the recipe is too much … even if you only give one a day, so I cut the log as instructed, but then I cut the cookies in half before the second baking.