Rovers Reward Dog Biscuits

I make these at Christmas for our canine friends and they are always a big hit.  Molly’s and Ella’s favorite too.  The mint and parsley are included for fresh doggie breath, but in our experience it doesn’t help one iota. – Terry

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats, uncooked
• 1 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 1 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves, chopped
• ½ cup toasted wheat germ
• 1 can (14½ oz) beef broth
• ¾ cup milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In small bowl, combine yeast, sugar and ¼ cup warm water (105° to 115°). Let stand until yeast foams, about 5 minutes.

In very large bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, oats, mint, parsley and wheat germ.  With wooden spoon, stir in yeast mixture, broth, and milk until combined.  With hands, knead dough in bowl until blended, about 1 minute.

Divide dough in half.  Cover 1 piece with plastic wrap to prevent drying out.  Place remaining piece of dough on lightly floured surface. With floured rolling pin, roll dough to ¼ inch thickness.  With large (about 5 inches) or small (about 2 inches) cookie cutter, such as bone or mailman, cut out as many biscuits as possible, reserving trimmings.  With spatula, transfer biscuits to large ungreased cookie sheet.  Reroll trimmings and cut more biscuits.  Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake small biscuits 30 minutes, bake large biscuits 40 minutes.  Turn oven off; leave biscuits in oven 1 hour to dry out.

Remove biscuits from cookie sheet to wire rack.  When cool, store at room temperature in tightly covered container up to 3 months. 

Makes about 4 dozen large biscuits or 24 dozen small biscuits.