Many moons ago I worked in a health food store called Natural Rythyms.  They sold vitamins and various other health aids.  There was a small sitting area where you could sit and enjoy a salad from the salad bar, or a sandwich from the limited menu.  They also sold baked goods.

It was a part-time job I took to help with the expense of my daughter’s wedding, so I only worked on Saturdays.  I didn’t wait a lot on customers, I was mostly in the back washing dishes, except for when I was baking muffins. Still I recall those days fondly because I got to spend time with one of my favorite people and I got to bake muffins.

Let me be clear.  I created my own muffins.  And it was all dependent upon what mood I was in and what ingredients were available.  But there was one thing you could be sure of, the muffins had chocolate chips in them.

It’s a wonderful feeling when a customer comes in and says, “Oh, I was hoping you had this muffin today, it’s my favorite.”  One of my muffin creations was Orange Chocolate Chip and it was very tasty.  I would think about it all week long, what type of muffin did I want to bake on Saturday?

So imagine my surprise yesterday as I was thinking of a treat for Tasty Tuesday when my mind began wandering back down the creative trail, but this time to dog treats.

Here’s what I came up with.  I’m calling it Cocobanana.

Before you start gather your ingredients.  The key point is to get the egg out of the fridge and let it sit for a few minutes, this will keep the cold egg from solidifying the coconut oil.

I’m not sure if you know this or not, but coconut oil is solid when the temperature is below 70°, you can buy coconut oil in the liquid form but it’s super pricey so I say, buy the solid and melt it.  My understanding is it’s not good to heat coconut oil in the microwave, so I put my coconut oil in a small glass dish and set that in another dish with hot water.  I changed the water a couple of times until the coconut oil was entirely melted.

While the coconut oil is melting, break your banana up into about six pieces and add the egg, beat with an electric mixer until blended well.  My banana was a little too fresh so it wasn’t mixing well.  I mashed it with a potato masher and then worked it with the egg.  It’s okay to have small lumps of banana in this.  I then added the already cooked oatmeal and blended that as well, then the coconut oil.  Now mix in the oat flour.

At this point I added the shredded coconut but I used a spatula.  It was a fairly stiff dough, but not unworkable.

I dropped by 1/2 spoonful onto my baking stone and cooked at 350° for about 25 minutes. I peeked in on them at about the 15 minute marker and they hadn’t moved at all so I pressed them down a bit with a fork.

My original intent was to add Carob chips to them which would have been perfect for both dogs and humans, but since my local grocery store didn’t have the chips, I used M&M’s in four of them.

Thoughts:  The cookies were browned on the bottom and the edges, but the inside was still moist.  Not raw but moist.  Jodi Chick thought the cooked oatmeal might have been too much or the banana might have been too fresh.  I’m going to try this recipe again, with dry oatmeal and an older banana.

Let’s see what Sampson and Delilah think.

Ooops, she was too fast and my finger got in the way of the camera. I’ll say that means the cookie is good.

Dammit!  He was too fast too!

Sampson and Delilah give these cookies a four paws up.  I’m not kidding, these suckers are tasty.  Anywhere I moved with that container of cookies, there were two dogs right on my tail!

So when I named the cookies naturally I got the tune of Copacabana stuck in my head.  I tried to work with that.

You’re welcome for the recipe and the ear worm too.

This post is a tad bit long but tell me, have you tried baking for your pets yet?  How do you feel about it?