Salmon dog biscuits and Lemon Drizzle cake

Goldensunflower asked for my recipe for salmon dog biscuits.  It's dead simple, it's basically just short crust pastry with a 75g jar of salmon paste added, plus some salmon oil.  We bought a 500ml bottle of salmon oil from the Approved Food website, but you can get it in pet shops.

So it's 225g flour (I use plain), 50g butter, margarine or lard or a mixture of them, the jar of salmon paste (you know, the jars of sandwich paste from a supermarket), and a tablespoon of salmon oil.   I put it all in my food processor and whizz it up to breadcrumbs, then trickle in a little cold water, just a bit at a time, until it suddenly all clumps together.  Take it out and knead very briefly, just to amalgamate it into a ball.  Flour the work surface and roll the dough out to about the thickness of a pound coin.  You can then use a cutter of your choice to cut it into shapes, or do as I do and just cut it across into strips about an inch wide.  Dc had a good suggestion, to use a pizza cutter - great idea, but mine broke a while back and I've never got round to replacing it.  Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake in a medium hot oven until golden brown, about 10 to 15 mins or so (can't be more precise than that, it depends on your oven).  Put them on a cooling rack, then break up into appropriately sized bits when cool.  Store some in a tin, enough for your dog to eat within 3 or 4 days, freeze the rest.

Before they went in the oven

Instead of salmon paste, you could use another flavour if your dog isn't a fan of fish.  Or peanut butter, Marmite or cheese spread, or grated cheese....Betty likes all of these.  If you haven't any salmon oil, you could use the juice out of a tin of salmon, or sunflower oil from tinned tuna.  Or just leave it out, in which case you'll probably need a bit more water.

Cooked - they're actually darker golden brown in real life

As to the cake....I'm sure everyone has their own favourite recipe for Lemon Drizzle cake, here's mine.  Again, it's dead simple - I go for simplicity every time!  It's more or less just a Victoria sponge batter, with a couple of variations.  And I use old Imperial measurements, simply because I've been making this cake for years and years, and have just never bothered to change it to metric measurements.

6oz butter or margarine
6oz ordinary granulated sugar (I reduce it to 5oz)
6oz self raising flour (or plain with 2 tsp baking powder)
3 eggs
Zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons

For the drizzle:  Juice of the lemon/s, 3 or 4 heaped tsp white sugar

For this cake this time, I also added a tablespoon of orange marmalade.

Beat the butter and sugar together (I use a hand held electric mixer) for several minutes, until well mixed and fluffy.  Crack in 1 egg at a time, with a tablespoon of flour, mixing well before adding the next egg.  Along with the 3rd egg and spoonful of flour, add the lemon zest and marmalade, mixing well again.  Then add the rest of the flour, don't use the electric whisk though or the flour will fly everywhere, just mix in carefully with a large spoon until no flour remains in sight.  The batter should be a soft dropping consistency, if it's a bit stiff, add a few drops of milk.  

Scrape into a loaf tin (preferably lined, unless your tins are super non stick ones, not battered old ones like mine) and bake in a medium oven for about 3/4 hour or so.  Sorry about the non precise times, I just basically cook things until they're done!  To check it's done, either press on the surface with your fingers, it should feel firm to the touch, or stick a knife or skewer in - there should be no cake mix on it when you pull it out.  

Whilst the cake is in the oven, make the drizzle - simply mix the sugar and lemon juice together in a cup or small jug, the sugar doesn't need to dissolve.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, make a load of holes in it whilst it's still hot - use a skewer or bamboo stick or something similar, I use a 2-pronged metal meat fork.  Then spoon the drizzle over the surface of the cake - leave the cake in the tin to get cold.  Job done.

Making the holes

With the glaze added