Liver Training Treats Recipe

Many weeks in the recipe column I like to make pretty little dog treats. Dog treats made with shredded carrots and colorful ingredients, all trimmed using cute little cookie cutters.

This is not one of those weeks.

This week’s recipe is, well, it’s downright ugly. The ingredients are hideous. The preparation is just plain gross. The smell of the treats baking is nothing you’d want to bottle as use as a room deodorizer.

But the finished product will make you very popular with your dog. And you’ll know that you’re giving your dog a treat that’s good for him (and also very inexpensive to make).

(Before we go any further, let me just warn you if you’re one of those people that can’t stand the sight of raw liver, run, do not walk, to another DogTipper page. You’ll find plenty of other yummy recipes here like Peanut Butter Treats.)

These treats make excellent training treats because they’re firm and can be trimmed into mere nuggets that you can use to reward your dog during his training session.

Recipe

• 1 pound raw liver, rinsed
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a blender, blend liver until smooth then pour into a large mixing bowl. Add other ingredients and stir until well mixed then pour onto greased cookie sheet with 1/2-inch sides. Bake for 30 minutes.

Step one is to assemble your ingredients, and they’re simple: raw liver, whole wheat flour, and an egg. I rinsed the liver with cold water so it’s a little less liver-y but you don’t have to if you’re in a pinch for time.

Next (and this is the toughest step), toss the liver into the blender. Blend until it’s the consistency of a malt (just keep telling yourself it’s a strawberry and chocolate malt. That works unless you catch a whiff of the pretend malt.) You don’t want any pieces remaining in the mix or, when it comes time to score the treats, you’ll have a tough time cutting them apart.

In a mixing bowl, pour the liver and mix with your flour, egg and water. Stir well. The result is a pretty heavy batter:

Next, pour the batter onto a well-greased cookie sheet (one with a good lip). This mix won’t rise much at all.

Pop the cookie sheet into a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes. Take the cookie sheet out and score the treats into 1/2-inch squares. (When we train with these treats, we break them up much smaller…but I don’t have the patience to cut them any smaller!)

Turn off your oven and return the cookie sheet with the scored treats back to the oven for about 10 minutes; this will help dry out the treats. After 10 minutes, remove them and, using a spatula, remove all the treats…then put them all back again (no, not in order! You just want to pile them up in any fashion so the edges that haven’t had a chance to dry out will get nice and crispy.) Return the cookie sheet to the oven (which is turned off) and leave it there until the oven has cooled or at least another half hour.

When you take the treats out of the oven, if they’re not completely cooled, let them cool on the counter before you finally bag them up and refrigerate them.

The result? Our dogs say these treats are lip-licking good!

 

Cooks: Don’t miss our My Dog Says I’m a Great Cook™ cookbook with over 100 dog treat recipes from the publishers, readers and fans of DogTipper! This paperback book is available in our PawZaar gift store!