My first baby turns 13 on Friday, and to celebrate I made her a Milk Bar style dog birthday cake! Radar loves special occasions, especially when it involves her getting special treats. Or rather, t-r-e-a-t-s. She knows the word. She knows when an occasion is special, especially if it involves her getting something special. Your dog probably needs a special treat for their birthday too so let's make a dog birthday cake that is safe for dogs to eat. Humans can even eat it too, but I'll tell you from experience it's not that delicious to a human palate!
Because people-style birthday cakes are full of ingredients dogs shouldn't have, like sugar, and more sugar, I toned it down and used only dog-friendly ingredients. However, you know your dog best, so if your dog has averse reactions to any of these ingredients, either substitute or do not make this recipe for your dog.
All Natural Sprinkles for Dog Birthday Cakes
You can buy sprinkles are colored with natural juices, like beet, carrot, spinach, and cabbage juice. I only had a small package of all natural sprinkles, but used regular rainbow sprinkles on the inside. Do not use chocolate sprinkles, of course. It's only a tablespoon of sprinkles, but you can choose if you want to go all natural or not, or use what you have. Just avoid chocolate, dragees, straight up sanding sugar, and anything a dog could choke on.
Rainbow jimmies, being mostly wax, oil, and food coloring, are a good choice. Regular rainbow sprinkles in this small of a quantity won't hurt your dog unless they are allergic to any food dyes. Sprinkles aren't strictly necessary for this cake to be a success, but it'll look way prettier with sprinkles than without!
How This Dog Birthday Cake is Different
Milk Bar cakes are known by their signature tallness, the "naked icing" look, rainbow sprinkles, and using acetate paper to aid in its construction. But who has acetate paper laying around? Other than ordering online, I have no idea where you'd even find acetate paper. So I decided to go acetate paper-less to construct this cake while retaining the Milk Bar look, and this is how I did it. It's not as clean as their version, as I am totally not a great cake decorator — but this is for the dog. She didn't care about the presentation, just eating it!
You can go way more stylish and precise on your dog birthday cake if you want.
Milk Bar Style Dog Birthday Cake
Equipment
- two 5" diameter cake pans (springform preferred)
Ingredients
- ¼ cup coconut oil melted
- ¼ cup pumpkin puree
- 4 ounces unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon honey
- ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon rainbow sprinkles
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- additional sprinkles for topping
Instructions
- Spray two 5" cake pans with cooking spray. Cut two circles to fit in the bottom of each, and spray those with cooing spray too. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Mix the coconut oil and pumpkin together until well combined in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.
- Add in the egg, applesauce, honey, and peanut butter. Stir or beat til combined.
- Stir or beat in the flour and baking soda until all ingredients are wet. Fold in the 1 tablespoon of rainbow sprinkles.
- Divide the batter between the two cake pans and smooth out the tops. Bake for 15 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool. You can put them in an airtight container for up to two days.
- Once ready to ice, use a serrated knife to cut the domed part off the cakes. Set aside.
- You can use the domed pieces to make a third layer for the cake if you want, or feed them to the dog as treats later. Either way, place the first layer on a cake stand or plate.
- Use an offset spatula to ice the top of the first layer with the Greek yogurt.
- Once iced, place the next layer on, and repeat until you've iced the top layer of the cake. Use the spatula to smooth yogurt icing in between the layers to make the signature Milk Bar cake look.
- Top the cake with sprinkles as desired and serve immediately... outside in the yard!
How'd it taste? Well, she LOVED it. I accidentally licked some batter off my finger when pouring it into the cake pans, and it wasn't bad. A bit bland, but in this case that's a good thing!
How much birthday cake can my dog eat?
She was very satisfied. While she was eating one layer, I took away the last one that she dropped on the ground. I didn't want her to get an upset stomach from too many new ingredients. She got two layers in all. The other two dogs each got a half of the last layer. The other two didn't come to the cake eating portion of the party to avoid potential food fights, because even the calmest dogs can get food aggressive when there is special occasion food about. Everyone stayed outside for a little while afterwards to make sure the cake stayed down, and it did, no upset bellies.
Try not to give your dog a birthday cake right after they've eaten a whole meal or they may regurgitate it all after scarfing down this delicious cake. I also do not recommend saving parts of this cake for later, as the yogurt icing will soak into the cake and make it soggy. If you want to save any part of the cake for later, do not ice it until you're ready to serve it.
Happy birthday Radar Love!
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