How to Make Liver Cake
This is the world's most popular homemade dog treat—and for good reason! It's incredibly simple to make, uses cheap, everyday ingredients, and your dog will absolutely love it.
Liver is easy to find in any supermarket (Morrisons is a great bet) or from your local butcher. The recipe calls for roughly 500g (about 1lb), but don't worry if your pack is a bit more or less—this recipe is very forgiving. If you don't have liver, you can easily swap it for other proteins like minced beef, kidney, heart, chicken livers, or even tuna!
This cake is perfect as a training treat, a special birthday cake, or even to sell at fairs. You can top it with cream cheese for a "frosting" or bake the mixture in a cupcake tray for individual pupcakes (check out my pupcake recipe for details).
For this recipe, you'll need a 9" cake tin. You can find one online here.
Equipment
- 1 9" Cake tin
Ingredients
- 500 g Liver (approx. 1lb, a standard pack)
- 2 Eggs
- 200 g Wholemeal flour (200g = 7 ounces)
- Splash of milk
Instructions
- Add the liver, the eggs and a splash of milk to a jug.
- And blend it. It should look a bit like a smoothie once done.
- Transfer the mix to a large bowl and add 200g (7oz) of flour
- Mix ingredients until it’s a thick sticky goo. You can add a bit more flour if it’s not thick enough. But it should be fine.
- Grease a cake tin with a little butter.
- Empty your mix into cake tin, making sure it’s level.
- Put cake tin into the middle of a preheated oven at 160ºC (320ºF/Gas Mark 3) and cook for about 45 mins.
- Right, it should now be cooked. Yummy!
- It’s easier to cut while it’s still warm.
- Cut into squares and fridge. Freeze what you won’t use in a few days.
- If your dog is like mine, she will have watched you the entire time.
Hi Jamie,
I made a liver cake with a similar recipe a while ago for my assistance dog from dogs for the disabled. She is allergic to dairy and beef so it’s not always easy to get treats for her to use whilst training. The other recipe said to use milk or water so I used water. It worked out fine and my dog loved it but it didn’t freeze well. She is ok with eggs as it is only cows dairy that she has an allergy to, do you think it would be ok to not put water or milk in and just have eggs will that make it freeze better?
Thanks
Annie
Hi Annie! Thanks for leaving a comment. In what way did it not freeze well?
Hi Jamie, my friends and I have been looking for a this recipe for a while, I was wanting to share it to my facebook page, if that’s ok.
Hi June!
Of course u can share it (and anything else on website)
Hi 🙂 Jamie! Its my dogs 8th birthday today and I’m going to bake this cake for him, it sounds awesome and I’m sure he’ll love it 😀
Hey Beverlene! I hope your doggy has a lovely birthday!
Sounds great but my German shepherd pup is 10 weeks old, is he too young for this ?
I’d say he probably is a bit young to be eating offal. Liver is a natural laxative too so it’ll just come back out the other end…wait a while and try using a different meat eg tuna.
Hi have been looking for this recipe for ages as my mums dog only eats these treats!! He will be very happy when I go over mums to make some!!! 🙂
Thanks Gemma!
A friend who runs puppy training classes introduced Bertie to the delights of liver cake—brilliant training tempter! Now I can make some from your recipe so I’m off to stock up with liver. THANK YOU Jamie, Bertie and Charlie will be overjoyed!
Your welcome Sonia!
Wow! please take some pics! Sounds doggy-licous!
Hi, Can you use any flour? or does it have to be either self raising, or plain? thanks! 🙂
I used wholemeal flour, but I’m sure any flour would do. I personally wouldn’t use self raising as I like it to be quite dense and heavy. But it doesn’t really matter…the dog won’t mind!
Ok, Thankyou!
I used rice flour to make a gluten free version. also, I wonder whether using potato or sweet potato instead of flour would work to make them grain free also, because many dogs have allergies to grain. your opinion?
Hi…any idea how I can preserve liver cupcakes for atleast a week w/o freezing them?
I suppose you’d really want to dry them out if you want them to last longer – so I’d suggest a longer cook at a lower temp.
I cut mine up into bite size pieces at the ‘cooked’ stage and then put back into the oven on a very low heat for about an hr and a half. If then lasts indefinitely without freezing and is very crunchy. My dogs love it like this
Thats sounds like a nice idea! I might try that next time!