Move over peanut butter, treats and all things packaged. Pet owners in the city are going all out to treat their furry babies on their birthday in super special ways. A pet spa day followed by a doggie house party are a must. But a birthday party without a cake is no party at all, right? No worries...Hyderabad has home bakers ready to bake a special treat for pets that live up to the saying ‘have a cake and eat it too.’
The idea of making cakes for pets is to allow them to eat as they wish. With ever growing awareness on what is good and bad for your four-legged members, pet owners are only looking for what’s best for them — the premium stuff. So in the menu are ingredients like fresh blueberry, strawberry, coconut flour, carrot and yes, maybe a dollop of peanut butter here and there.
Some like Divya Varam, owner of two-year-old shih tzu Koko, baked a birthday cake for him because nothing can be better than home-made goodies. “Koko’s cake was simple — vanilla sponge cake with ingredients that are safe for him and are easily available, like flour, eggs, vanilla pod, palm sugar (natural), little coconut oil instead of butter and two spoons of milk. One can add dates too in moderation,” explains Divya.
If you are one those who feel your furry baby deserves more than a bowl of treats on his/her birthday then you sure would have turned to google to search for places that cakes for pets. Cakes for pets are still not very common, and home baker Jit Chowdhary regrets not getting a chance to bake a cake specially for pets at Cake O’clock. His dilemma is, “When I get orders for pets, I get very excited but it doesn’t last long. It all fades the moment clients say, ‘But we are the ones who will eat the cake,” he laughs.
He reasons “I agree a cake meant for a pet should be edible for human beings, but a cake meant for human beings shouldn’t be fed to pets.” That is because while flour and ingredients like eggs are good to go on a cake for your furry ball, the same cannot be said about a combination of eggs, salt and butter.
A lot of pet lovers leave no stone unturned to get their pet a cake packed with everything that are their favourite. That is why Chaitali Pednekar, baker at The Willow Bake Shop makes sure she picks only ingredients like blueberry, coconut flour, carrot, coconut oil, yogurt and so on. “Coconut oil is good for their skin and fur so it is good to include. And with one of my partners Sujit Seshadri being a vet, I know I can never go wrong with the ingredients,” smiles Chaitali.
Others like Cafe De Loco at Kondapur who don’t just bakes cakes for pets but have a separate menu and cake menu for your puppers are definitely rocking it for a pet party. Cake, pupcakes (cup cakes for pups) birthday parties for dogs, they do it all. “Since our cafe is pet-friendly there is a lot more pet activity and we are all very happy about it. Our pet cake journey started with Ruchira, my wife, reading, and experimenting with ingredients to bake cakes for our pets. Now we have 50 varieties meant for pets and if human beings want they can take a bite too. We stay away from using packaged pet food, sweets and colours that could be toxic. What is meant for us humans, need not be good for our pets. Even the peanut butter that we use in our cakes is homemade; we avoids the use of salt and sugar. We only do ‘baked’ cakes and avoid raw cakes. Feeding raw food is not very healthy for pets,” says Hemant Sakarwal.
Pet bakers do have a word of caution about feeding them cakes. All of them stress on how much is too much and that love shouldn’t reflect in quantity of cake served. “Unless the cakes are meant to be shared with other dogs I recommend smaller cakes for my clients. I started baking in my studio as an experiment. We have a lot of restrictions for our dog as it is epileptic. I am a baker by profession and teach baking but that doesn’t mean I should go all out with butter and sugar for pets. These cakes need a lot of care when it comes to ingredients. It is also important to know about allergies. I bake cakes only on order and only if it picked up from the studio,” says Arundati Rao of Escapades Culinary Studio.