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I have seen lots of awesome Holiday Cookies popping up all over the Blogosphere. My friend Judy and a few of my other great blogging buddies are doing the 12 Days of Cookies and I am getting really inspired to start baking. My mom and I always bake Holiday Cookies together (see here and here for last year’s cookie series) and we are heading down to see her the week of Christmas, so we will do our cookie baking then.

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As you all know Roberto and I got a puppy a few months ago, Peperoncino (- but we call him Pepino because we found most people have trouble pronouncing “Peperoncino”). Pepino has been going to Puppy School and the trainers had a big holiday party for all the dogs in all their classes at a dog park over the weekend . So since I can never go to a party empty handed, I decided that I wanted to make some holiday treats for them all to enjoy at the party. I had this recipe for pet treats that came with a cute dog bone cookie cutter, so I decided to make them, and add some peanut butter to the mix since that is Pepino’s favorite flavor. Also making my own treats makes me feel better about what I am giving them. I am not just about healthy eating for humans! The dough was great to work with and it made about 70 treats!!!! Sadly I couldn’t find the cookie cutter, so Roberto put his artist hat on and devised a way to make the shapes.

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Somehow Pepino knew these treats were for him, because the whole time we were making them, he was right at our feet in the kitchen sitting on his “magic carpet” – the carpet that when he sits on it, gets him treats. It was so cute!

We had a great time at the party and Pepino had fun playing with friends. He shared his treats very nicely and asked for us to make them again soon. I am going to make the same recipe again, but instead of Peanut Butter I am going to use cheese. Our cat Nimue, loves cheese and it is the only “treat” she will eat. I am sure Pepino won’t mind! ;)

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INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup non-fat dry milk powder (we actually had this in our hurricane stash!)
1/2 tsp salt
6 TBS butter
1 egg
1 cup water
3 tsp wheat bran
3 TBS Peanut Butter

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Put butter and egg in food processor and process until smooth. In a bowl mix the flour, milk powder, salt and wheat bran together. Add flour mixture, PB and water alternately to butter and egg mixture and pulse processor until the dough has come together into a nice ball (you may not need to use all the water).

Roll the dough out onto a floured surface and roll to about 1/2 inch thickness. If you have a cookie cutter, cut the shapes out. If not, you can use the Roberto method. Cut small (about 2 inch long) rectangles in the dough with a knife.

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Fold piece in half lengthwise. Squish the middle of each end towards the center to make the 2 rounded knobs at each end. Flip over to smooth side and place on a cookie sheet (don’t worry about spacing, they aren’t going to grow).

Bake for about 15 minutes, flip and then bake another 3-4 minutes. Place on cookie racks to cool and keep out overnight to harden.

Makes about 60-70 cookies.