Looking for a unique gift to give a pet-loving friend? Make an edible basket that you can fill with dog treats. When the treats are gone, the pooch can eat the basket too. Edible baskets can deliver party favors at your pooch’s birthday party or serve as edible food bowls. Edible baskets are versatile and are the ultimate in recycling -- nothing remains to throw away after they are empty.
Making Dough
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
Put your measured whole wheat flour, dry yeast, sugar, unbleached flour, oat bran, cinnamon and anise in a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon.
Make a hole in the middle of the dry ingredients with your hand. Pour your measured hot water and vegetable oil into the hole.
Use an electric hand beater on medium-low to blend the ingredients for 1 minute or until well-blended. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl to get all of the ingredients mixed.
Shaping Baskets
Put flour on your hands, the pastry cloth and rolling pin cover to keep the dough from sticking to you. Dump the dough onto the pastry cloth.
Roll the dough out to 3/8-inch thick, using the rolling pin. Sprinkle flour on the dough and the pastry cloth as needed to keep dough from sticking.
Cut circles in the dough using a round cookie cutter.
Place a deep fluted muffin tin upside down on a cookie sheet and spray non-stick cooking spray on the outside -- the upturned bottom -- of the muffin tin.
Lift one cookie circle off the pastry cloth and press the dough around the outside of one muffin mold to form an upside-down basket. Repeat for the remaining muffin molds on the pan.
Place the muffin tin, still on the cookie sheet, in preheated oven.
Bake for one hour. Turn the oven off and leave the baskets in it overnight to finish drying.
Remove each basket off each muffin mold carefully and place them right-side up. They are ready to fill and serve.
Tips
Use hot, not boiling, water from the tap. Test on the inside of your wrist to make sure it is not too hot. Water that is too hot will ruin the yeast.
Use the noted amount of anise seeds whole or ground in a coffee grinder. Reroll leftover pieces of dough to make more cookies with.
Store the baked baskets in an airtight container on the countertop to keep them fresh.
Use oven-safe metal or glass bowls to make larger baskets.
You can cut dough into strips to make a woven basket.
Get together with your doggie-parent friends and start a holiday basket exchange to get a collection of baskets of various flavors.
Warnings
Let the baskets cool completely before you serve them to your dog.
Warnings
Let the baskets cool completely before you serve them to your dog.
Tips
Use hot, not boiling, water from the tap. Test on the inside of your wrist to make sure it is not too hot. Water that is too hot will ruin the yeast.
Use the noted amount of anise seeds whole or ground in a coffee grinder. Reroll leftover pieces of dough to make more cookies with.
Store the baked baskets in an airtight container on the countertop to keep them fresh.
Use oven-safe metal or glass bowls to make larger baskets.
You can cut dough into strips to make a woven basket.
Get together with your doggie-parent friends and start a holiday basket exchange to get a collection of baskets of various flavors.
Items You Will Need
- Large bowl
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Wooden spoon
- Electric hand beater
- Rubber spatula
- Rolling pin
- Rolling pin cloth
- Pastry cloth
- 4-inch to 6-inch-diameter round cookie cutter
- Nonstick cooking spray
- Deep fluted muffin tin
- Cookie sheet
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1½ cups whole wheat flour
- 1½ teaspoons dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1½ cups unbleached flour
- 1/4 cup oat bran
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon anise powder
- Extra unbleached flour
Tips
- Use hot, not boiling, water from the tap. Test on the inside of your wrist to make sure it is not too hot. Water that is too hot will ruin the yeast.
- Use the noted amount of anise seeds whole or ground in a coffee grinder. Reroll leftover pieces of dough to make more cookies with.
- Store the baked baskets in an airtight container on the countertop to keep them fresh.
- Use oven-safe metal or glass bowls to make larger baskets.
- You can cut dough into strips to make a woven basket.
- Get together with your doggie-parent friends and start a holiday basket exchange to get a collection of baskets of various flavors.
Warnings
- Let the baskets cool completely before you serve them to your dog.
Writer Bio
Based in Las Vegas, Sandy Vigil has been a writer and educator since 1980. She taught high school and middle school English and drama for 11 years. Vigil holds a Master of Science in teaching from Nova Southeastern University and a Bachelor of Arts in secondary English education from the University of Central Oklahoma.