For Homemade Dog Treats
This royal icing recipe for dog treats can be used for people food, too. Royal icing is quick and easy to make, but it hardens quickly, so you have to be ready to work fast…
The recipe for royal icing takes only a few minutes to mix together, and once you get the hang of working with it, you can frost your homemade dog cookies easily.
When you make homemade royal icing from scratch, the main ingredient is sugar. While there are some recipes for sugarless royal icing, they all use some form of artificial sweetener.
Artificial sweeteners are not good for dogs, and some can even be life-threatening.
Xylitol is a good example. The most common way for dogs to ingest xylitol is by eating chewing gum. Just 1-4 pieces of chewing gum with xylitol (depending on how much xylitol is in the gum) can cause severe hypoglycemia in a 20 lb. dog. And just 5 pieces of gum can cause liver failure.
Xylitol poisoning can occur in less than an hour, and it is a medical emergency. So don’t even consider experimenting with artificial sweeteners when making dog treats!
That having been said, you have two choices. You can use this royal icing recipe sparingly on your homemade dog treats.
Or you can buy a you can buy a dog treat icing mix that is sugar free.
How to Make Royal Icing
To make the royal icing, beat the ingredients with your mixer until they form a stiff peak.
Use the icing immediately—and I do mean immediately—as it hardens VERY fast!
Also, don’t increase the amount of the recipe. Keep it small or you’ll end up throwing some of the icing away because it got too hard!
Ingredients for the Royal Icing Recipe
- 1 1/2 teaspoons meringue powder
- 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 3/4 tablespoon warm water
Royal icing can be colored easily, by adding food color or food coloring gel when you mix the ingredients..
Tips for Using Royal Icing on Dog Treats
Getting royal icing to stick to dog treats can be a bit tricky. If you spread the dog treat icing on a dog treat with a smooth surface, the icing has a tendency to fall off later. Because of this, dog treats made with royal icing on smooth dog treats, cannot be shipped easily.
However, it isn’t too difficult to solve this problem. Simply use a recipe that gives you a rough surface when the dog treats have been baked. One way to do this is to add corn meal or bran to your recipe. Simply substitute ½ cup of the coarser ingredient for ½ cup of flour.
Another way to get the icing to stick on the dog cookie is to prick the dog treats with a sharp object like a fork or ice pick—to make little holes that will help hold the royal icing in place.
Using dog treat icing is a fun and easy way to really “dress up” your homemade dog cookies! And, because of its hardening and keeping qualities, royal icing can be a great choice for decorating homemade dog treats.
While any home made royal icing recipe is mostly sugar, you can now buy a royal icing mix that contains no sugar and no fat–it was created just for dog treats.
I have to admit that using the royal icing mix for dog treats is sooo much easier than making your own!
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