Snow Day

I was driving to one of my favourite stores the other day who were having a garage sale (who can resist a Lark sale?!) when I realised that it was snowing! I know in some places snow is a really common thing, but I think the last time I experienced snow near where I live was over 10 years ago! So this was really exciting for me! I ended up purchasing a few small things at the garage sale but I was more excited about getting back out into the snow. After buying a take away latte from Fango Fango, Daylesford I decided to drive home, pick up my dog and then head up to Mt Macedon so we could both experience the snow.

I also managed to get a couple of short videos on my phone. 

This is the snow falling outside of Lark in Daylesford. It was hard to capture the snow falling and it seemed to be heavier than it looks here, but it gives you an idea.

And this is Lucy experiencing snow for the first time. She wasn't as cautious as I thought she'd be, I think she actually liked it!

Peanut Butter Cake for my dog

Yesterday was my 'baby's' birthday. I confess, I'm terrible because this is the first time I've actually remembered it on the day! So I decided to go all out and bake her a cake. It probably seems silly, but it's something that I've been tempted to do for a while now so yesterday I had my excuse! I had to work yesterday, but after I finished I went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients and took them home to a (seemingly) very excited Lucy - or could it be that she gets this excited every time I come home? lol

This was a very simple cake to make, and there wasn't too much of each flavour to make it too overwhelming for Lucy.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole meal plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup grated carrots
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup honey
1 egg

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Mix together flour and baking soda. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into a cake tin, sprayed with nonstick spray and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.

Here the recipe called for the cake to be 'frosted' with low fat cottage cheese and decorated with carrot pieces, however I'd found another recipe that I'd wanted to try out. This used 3tbsp flour, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 cups peanut butter and 1 tsp honey.

I had my first big accident with my baking (well since I've started the blog), although I was glad that if it had to happen to any recipe, that it happened with this one! lol When I took the cake out of the pan, it ended up, as cakes do upside down, but in the process of turning it back over the cake broke completely in half. Oops! Anyway, when I spread the icing over the top you couldn't tell at all, and Lucy didn't seem to mind!

I actually wish I had have stuck with the cottage cheese icing idea because I think there was too much peanut butter for Lucy. Every time she had a lick it'd get stuck in her mouth, so she ended up trying to avoid it (although it was quite funny to watch).

It seemed like she really enjoyed it, although it's probably a once off treat for her! I think I might try other dog-friendly recipes in the future, like cookies. It was very funny to watch her eating her birthday cake, because she'd delicately take a piece of the cake in her mouth, move away from the plate and eat it slowly. If she dropped any crumbs on the ground they were eaten before she'd move onto the next mouthful.

And here's my girl with a belly full of cake! She ended up not eating a lot, maybe the equivelant of a large slice. There was a lot of cake left anyway, which was a shame but it was still worth making it!

And a random picture of one of our sheep and her two lambs who wandered by as Lucy was eating. I couldn't resist taking a photo, they're so cute.

Oh and I found this recipe on a website called Dog Birthday Recipe Exchange. They have recipes for other cakes on the site as well as other great looking dog treats.