Homemade bagel treats for the pups...

Quite a bit of snow so far! Max is having a blast in the fresh snow as he pounces through the piles outside.

Spike, however, is not so thrilled as he tries to mosey about without getting stuck - he is 17 after all and does not move all that speedily anymore. He does occasionally stop to chomp at the snow on the ground though... weird, but he likes it!

So, we had an oops last Sunday... I thought we had some homemade treats still in the freezer for the pups, but when Jeff went out to get them, he came back with a sad face and an empty bucket. Apparently he already cleaned out that stash - I did not get a chance to made a new batch for them this week and since we are huddled inside with inches of snow piling up outside, I thought I better get some treats for them in the oven!

We did something a little more festive this time and I made these Holiday Doggie Bagels for them. The dough is simple whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and rye flour mixed with a little bit of warmed chicken broth, honey and yeast to add some lift.

You don't have to let the dough rise much, but you do want to give it a few minutes to relax before you begin shaping them. After you form the dough into little balls, you just plunge a floured finger through the center to form a hole - you can either twirl or stretch the dough to make the hole bigger; I found it easier to just spin it around my finger a few times. The bagels will rise and puff up a bit from the heat of the oven and since they are so small already, they only need to rest for 5 or 10 minutes before baking.

Right before we put them in the oven, we decided on impulse to dye the bagels in a couple holiday colors - to do this, we just beat an egg yolk with a splash of water and used a tiny bit of red and green gel to tint the yolks. While we left a few completely plain, after we painted the colored ones, we decided to sprinkle on some sesame seeds for good measure. The red worked well, but the green color ended up kind of weak - I probably should have used a bit more of the gel. The spoiled pups devoured their piece in record time and give them two (4 if they could!) paws up.

Recipes
Holiday Doggie Bagels