Bake-A-Bone The Original Dog Treat Maker

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $30.13
Today's Bonus: 25% Off

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program of course i didn't NEED this extraneous, indulgent, First World gadget, but it's so REWARDING and FUN.

Basically a glorified waffle maker, Bake-A-Bone makes soft, fresh, moist treats in the shape of bones. Like, in 5 minutes. The recipe is a tweaked waffle formula (flour + milk + egg + whatever), so the treat is fluffy and egg-y, with crusty edges and a golden brown surface. Watching your dog devour these hot, steamy treats that you home-baked is so, so rewarding. My husband smelled the baking aromas in the air and was instantly jealous. "I want one!" he cried.

For spoiled dogs? it's basically the norm now.

PROS:

-ability to customize treat recipes (i cut the flour and add freeze-dried raw food instead)

-small size doesnt take up too much counter space (esp in NYC)

-treats ready in 5-7 minutes (about same time as a waffle)

-fires all the rewarding synapses in your brain ("dog... loves... me...must...make... more... treats")

-nonstick surface easy to clean

CONS:

-can only bake 4 biscuits at a time. (the recipe batch makes at least 16-20 bones so you'll be making at least 4-6 batches, time adds up

-cheap construction and plastic overshell gets hot (doesnt seem like it would last years)

-you could technically use your waffle maker to make the same treats and just slice them up into bite-sized sticks

-treats are moist, therefore not shelf-stable (need to be refrigerated in sealed container)

Makes a great gift for a new pet owner or someone who loves their dog.

Click Here to Read More Reviews >>

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program The Bake-A-Bone dog treat maker is very easy to use and clean up. It came with a recipe book containing 30 recipes and most of the recipes only require on average four ingredients that are usually stocked in most kitchens. Bake-A-Bone also has pre-made mixes that can be bought seperately but I recommend making your mixes since it's so easy, cheaper and you have the peace of mind of what is actually in the mix.

I baked the Peanut Butter treats from the included recipe book. I made a couple substitutions to make this recipe grain-free plus a few added benefits. The recipe called for flour or whole wheat flour which I substituted with garbanzo bean flour for it's higher protein value/grain-free and where it called for milk I used coconut milk because it helps with skin conditions since I have two dogs who are allergic to grass. The recipe stated it would take 8 to 10 minutes to bake and with my substitutions, the treats were ready in 9 minutes. The Peanut Butter recipe produced 36 dog treats.

I gave each of my dogs a treat from the first batch and three out of my four dogs loved them. The one who didn't, it wasn't a surprise since he's my picky eater. One of my dogs liked it so much, she sat at the kitchen entrance waiting for another treat the whole time I was making the treats.

I also baked a grain-free dog treat recipe that helps with my dogs' skin allergies (it's also helpful for dogs with eczema, flea allergies, contact dermatitis, and itchy skin), which usually takes about 40 minutes to bake, in nearly half the time. I did use Bake-A-Bone's suggestion for cruncher treats by baking these treats an additional 15 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees after baking them in the treat maker for 10 minutes. Even though I was able to cut the baking time down, I didn't save any time while baking the treats since the treat maker only makes four treats at a time.

After baking, I let the treat maker cool down and simply wiped it clean with a damp cloth. The treat maker has a place to wrap the cord on the bottom of it for easy storage and doesn't take up much room in the cabinet.

Overall, I enjoyed making doggie treats with the Bake-A-Bone treat maker because it does bake dog treats quick, however while baking I kept wishing it baked more treats at a time because it is time consuming to bake only 4 treats every 10 minutes or so.

Here's the grain-free recipe I mentioned above for those who would like to try it:

* 1 sweet potato cooked and skin removed

* 1 egg

* 1/2 cup coconut milk

* 1/2 cup peanut butter

* 1.5 tablespoons flax

* 2 tablespoons water

* 1/2 cup coconut flour

Directions:

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

* Combine the flax and water in a bowl and let it sit so that the flax makes a paste.

* Cut up the sweet potato and boil until soft. Let cool, remove skins and mash.

* Combine all ingredients in a mixer and mix well.

* Line a cooking sheet with parchment paper.

* Drop batter onto paper in the size that you prefer.

* Bake for 15 minutes and take a wooden spoon and lightly press down on each cookie to flatten out any sharp areas. (If the cookies have sharp areas, they could scrape the top of your doggies mouth.)

* Bake another 20 25 minutes. Pull out and let cool.

* Store chilled in the fridge.

* Yields: About 30-32 round dog biscuits

* source: http://morethanpaleo.com/homemade-grain-free-dog-treats/

Buy Bake-A-Bone The Original Dog Treat Maker Now

I have three yorkshire terriers that love this machine. I made the triple peanut butter bones from the mix and they gobbled them up and then ran back into the kitchen barking for more. I gave some to my sister to give to her yorkies and she said they all loved them. Even her little one, with no teeth, was able to gum his because the bones were pretty soft. When I brought the box out to try one of the recipes in the booklets, they whined while they were baking, gobbled them up and then barked for more.

Read Best Reviews of Bake-A-Bone The Original Dog Treat Maker Here

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program The Bake-a-Bone dog treat maker is a great novelty item. It is fun and easy to bake up doggy treats in this waffle-press type oven. And best of all, my very fussy Chihuahua absolutely loved them! She gobbled them up and begged for more.

But like all novelty items the appeal quickly wore off. This biggest issue I had with the oven is that only four bones can be baked at a time. For my first attempt I made a half batch of the Peanut Butter Bone recipe. Even with half a batch I still got enough mix for 21 bones. So at 10 minutes a round it took almost an hour of constant attention to bake all the bones. A full batch would take almost two hours!

So I really love the idea of home baked bones for my dog, but next time I think I'll just use a silicon dog bone shaped mold. With that I will be able to use my gas oven and bake the entire batch at one time.

Want Bake-A-Bone The Original Dog Treat Maker Discount?

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I admit, I chose this product on a lark, thinking it might be fun but not knowing how much I would use it. And I find, that with a few caveats, I really like it. Even more important, my dogs love the little doggie waffles. (Full disclosure: my dogs seem to like *everything* that looks even vaguely edible, so their liking these treats is no big surprise.)

So far, I've used only the molasses cookie recipe, but the included recipe book has lots of variations I want to try. Most call for eggs, and I don't use eggs, but that I can easily adapt. I like that the recipes include healthy ingredients and there are no unknown, poorly named icky stuff in the treats, as is too often the case in commercial ones.

From the pictures, I thought that the "bones" would be bigger, but no, the baker cooks only 4 medium size cookies at a time. It seems to me that if the design had been a bit different, the machine could have held 6 cookies with the same outside footprint.

So, 4 cookies at a time, each taking 5 10 minutes as the suggested baking time. I settled on 7 minutes, and that seemed to work fine. You have to judge doneness for yourself but that, too, was not a real problem. A half recipe 20 cookies. So, yes, it is time consuming, but if I make them during my reading time, I can take a few minutes to fill the machine, then relax while they are baking, empty and refill, start over again.

I used a toothpick to pry the bones out of the nonstick molds, and they released easily. Cleanup was a snap just a wipe with a damp paper towel. A couple of the cookies were misshaped because I used too much or too little batter, but the dogs didn't care, and I got the hang of filling the molds pretty quickly. The recipe book said to put the treats in a heated oven and to turn off the heat to make them crunchy, but I didn't feel the need to do that. The dogs have other crunchy treats, so soft is nice for a change. The peanut butter and carrot recipes are next on my list to try.

The icing/frosting recipes aren't as helpful things that need refrigeration and won't harden or last, but maybe as a special treat.

The machine itself feels fairly flimsy, not a heavyweight at all, which makes me wonder if perhaps it is overpriced, especially considering it has limited uses. (I have to admit, I've considered making people waffles in this, just for the fun of it.) There are cookie mixes available for purchase, but I haven't researched those because I like using the recipes where I can control the ingredients.

The light that is supposed to turn green when the machine is hot enough is actually amber. There are two lights, one an orange one that is on when the machine is plugged in, and the amber one, that goes on and off with the heat.

I've made dog cookies from scratch before, but it is a fairly laborious process, at least for the recipes I used, and I have to use the oven, something I try to avoid in the summer. With this new, easy-to-use baker, I think the dogs will demand that I make fresh cookies at least once a week.

UPDATE: I'm making the peanut butter recipe right now. They are delicious (yes, I ate one), and the dogs love them. The recipe was quite thick and my first batch was kind of ugly, so I thinned the batter. Perhaps I mismeasured (made 1/2 recipe), perhaps not. The thinner batter makes a less dense cookie, but my dogs don't care, it is is much easier to fill the molds.