These homemade Crunchy Berry Parfait Dog Treats are the perfect scratch dog food made with love for your puppies! Whole ingredients of berries, oats, yogurt, and cinnamon made up as crisp or soft snacks for your fur baby.
Table of Contents
Why You (and Your Puppy) Will Love These Treats
Making homemade dog treats is a wonderful way to ensure that your furry friend gets healthy and tasty snacks without any unnecessary additives.
These are incredibly easy to make with just a few ingredients.
When I was making these berry dog treats, I realized the ingredients were pretty much a puppy version of a breakfast berry parfait!
Always check with your vet about any concerns or questions related to dog treats and what your dog can eat.
Ingredients
Mixed Berries – frozen is best to use. Any mix of blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, and blackberries are great. Do NOT use cherries or pomegranate.
Rolled Oats – I prefer rolled oats but instant and steel cut also will work
Ground Cinnamon
Plain Greek Yogurt
I also like to use fun cookie cutter for the treats. You can also simply cut them into squares with a knife or pizza cutter.
Instruction Overview
Use a food processor to blend some of the oats into a coarse grind. Add to a mixing bowl.
Also grind up the frozen berries to a similar texture. A few larger pieces is fine. Add to the bowl.
Also add to the large bowl the rest of the whole oats, yogurt, and cinnamon. Mix to combine.
Press the mixture together with your hands. If your mixture does not stick together enough, add a little more yogurt.
Roll the mixture out to approximately 1/4 inch thick (or as desired).
If the mixture is sticking too much to the rolling pin, it might be too wet. Add a touch more whole oats or you can even dust the top of the dough with a little whole wheat flour. A little sticking is normal, though!
Cut out into your desired shapes and place on a baking sheet. They can go right up against each other as they will not expand at all.
Bake the treats at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave the treats in the hot oven for up to 2 hours. Check every 30 minutes and remove the treats when they feel hard. This will vary based on how your oven works. (My old oven took 2 hours, my new oven in the new hours is done at 30 min because of how it circulates when cooling!).
Cooking and crisping time will vary with your oven, treat size, and dough thickness.
Store soft treats in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 1 week.
Store hard and crunchy treats in a jar or container for up to a month.
Modifications and Substitutions
Make sure any berries you use are safe for dogs.
Whole wheat flour is a great way to get the mixture to hold together, if you want to use it. You could also use this in place of the ground oats. Note that if you use any wheat flour that they are no longer gluten free.
Plain Greek or “regular” yogurt is best. Flavored yogurts have a lot of added ingredients that could potentially be harmful for your dog. Check the ingredients list.
Hard Treats or Soft Treats
I make most of my homemade dog treats as hard treats.
When they are hard and dried out, they do not mold quickly because there is no moisture.
The hard treats also are good for their teeth as they somewhat clean them as they chew.
I make them crisp by leaving them in the warm oven for a couple hours to dry them out completely.
They can then be stored in a cookie jar or at room temperature for several weeks.
Softer treats should be stored in the refrigerator after a couple days to prevent molding (since they do not have preservatives) and no need to leave them in the oven.
Whatever your puppy likes, or if you want to change them up, they taste amazing regardless!
FAQs
What frozen berries are best for dogs?
More Crunchy Dog Treat Recipes
Dog Treats
Homemade baked dog treats to spoil your puppy!
Crunchy Berry Parfait Dog Treats
Equipment
- Rolling Pin
- Cutting board or clean counter
- Cookie Cutters desired shape(s)
Ingredients
- 3 cups rolled oats or oats of choice
- 1 cup mixed berries frozen is best, see note 1
- ⅓ cup plain Greek yogurt more as needed
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Blend 2 cups of the oats in a food processor to a coarse grind. Place in a medium mixing bowl.3 cups rolled oats
- Blend the frozen berries in the food processor and add to the bowl.1 cup mixed berries
- Add the remaining 1 cup of oats, cinnamon, and yogurt to the bowl. Mix to combine.⅓ cup plain Greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Press the mixture together. It should hold together without being overly wet. If too dry, add a Tablespoon of yogurt at a time until it combines well. If too wet, add a touch more oats as needed.
- Roll the mixture out on a cutting board or clean counter to approximately 1/4 inch thick, or as thick as desired.
- Cut out treats in your desired shapes and sizes, and place each on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. They can go very close together as they will not expand. (see note 3).
- Bake for 15 minutes (10 minutes for small treats).
- Crispy Treats: Turn the oven off and leave the treats in the oven, up to 2 hours, checking every 30 minutes. Remove when they are crisp.
- Soft Treats: Remove from the oven after the 15 minutes of cooking and let cool.
- Store in a jar or container up to one week in the refrigerator for soft treats, or up to 1 month at room temperature for hard treats.
Notes
- Any mixture of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries is great. Do NOT use cherries. Check with your vet about whether other fruits are suitable.
- Fresh or thawed berries will produce a lot more moisture. You can use these but you might need to add more oats or whole wheat flour to get the mixture to stick together properly.
- Using cookie cutters is fun because they are cute. But many times I will simply roll out the mixture and use a pizza cutter to cut rows of squares just because it is faster and easier.
