Terrific Twos (please)

Two carrot "candles" mounted in peanut butter to go with the Happy Birthday song!

Anyone in my gift-giving-to circle whose birthday falls in September or October knows that I'm very unreliable at this time of year.  Also if you live far away (which is everyone now) - ahem+.  I am just soooo focused on Halloween that the days fly by and I miss the significant dates.  So, when September 5th arrived it was almost 10a before I remembered it was Delia's 2nd birthday!  And I hadn't made treats!  ACK!  I hustled through my "Making: Beasties" pin board (on pinterest) for the recipe I'd planned to make which I found right away and realized that I didn't have all that I needed for it so I found another for which I had almost all the ingredients already. At least we had a "big" party for her first birthday, right?

She wasn't interested in the carrot "candles" but she was interested in the peanut butter at their bases! She let Betty have the carrots; at least Betty likes carrots.

The recipe came from King Arthur flour, which just happened to be the brand of whole wheat flour I had in the pantry.

Top row, left to right: Two each of gnomes to celebrate all the lawn fauna left here by the former owners that (mostly) Delia has demolished, hydrants to honor her urban roots, and squirrels, because... SQUIRRELS!
Bottom row: bones; the traditional shape of dog treats (there are 6 more of these)

Best of Breed Biscuits (their name, not mine)

2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour or Premium Whole Wheat Flour (I had Premium)
1 cup rolled oats, regular or quick (I used regular)
1 tablespoon dried parsley or 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (didn't have either, so left it out)
1/2 cup Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk (mine was store brand)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup peanut butter, crunchy or plain (I did half and half creamy and crunchy because I didn't have a whole cup of either)
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon cold water, enough to make a cohesive dough (I used half a cup, but could have added the extra tablespoon)

1) Preheat the oven to 300°F. Lightly grease a couple of baking sheets, or line them with parchment. Grease is the word around here.

2) Mix together the flour, oats, parsley, dried milk, and salt.

3) Add the eggs and peanut butter, stirring to combine; the mixture will be crumbly.

4) Add enough water to bring the dough together; depending on the season, you may need to add a bit more (winter), or a bit less (summer). It seemed like my dough was together, but it wasn't together enough to be rolled 1/4" thick.  Oopsie!

5) To make biscuits using a dog-bone cutter, roll the dough about 1/4" thick, and cut with a 3 1/2" cutter (or the size of your choice). Gather and re-roll the scraps, and continue to cut biscuits until you've used all the dough.

NOTE: I have A LOT of cookie cutters.  Like probably over 165 now that I picked up an alphabet set at the Goodwill.  Yeah.  So, I dug through to find a few that I thought were appropriate to Delia and then I used some of the teeny tiny ones to finish off the dough.  *We generally give smaller, bite-sized treats to the Beastie Grrrlz so that they can have a few without compromising their healthy weights.

6) To make dog "cookies," drop the dough in walnut-sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets. Flatten them to about 1/4".

7) Bake the biscuits for about 40 to 60 minutes, baking the smaller cookies for a shorter amount of time. When finished, the biscuits will be dark golden brown, and will be dry and crisp all the way through. Because mine were thicker, the small biscuits went for about 40 mins and the larger for 55 or so.  Either our oven runs a bit hot or the altitude makes it so that usually the lower number of minutes listed in a recipe is just about right for baking here.

8) Remove the biscuits from the oven, and cool right on the pans. I let the minis cool on the pan, because they'd fall through the cooling rack, but out of habit cooled the big ones on the racks after about 10 mins on the sheet. It worked just fine, but it seems I needlessly gave myself and extra thing to wash. [shakes fist at sky]

Yield: about 42 larger (3 1/2" dog-bone) biscuits, 60 smaller (round) biscuits. I ended up with 17 large treats and probably 70-80 mini treats.

Dozens of tiny triangles and tiny stemless 3-leaf covers (I guess). Once cooled I put this in an "airtight" container in the fridge.  It's going to take awhile to go though all these treats. 

+Today (Sept 6) is my oldest niece, J's, birthday!  And I haven't mailed off her gift, because I suck.  I haven't mailed her brother's gift either, it sits on my desk, his birthday was May.  Ugh.  Next week!  And I'll send her sister's then, too; 6 weeks early.

*This strategy meant A LOT more time went into making these than if I'd just made them all bone-, squirrel-, hydrant- or gnome-shaped.  If I'd been able to roll the dough to 1/4" I'd probably still be cutting and baking those suckers.