The “Bake A Bone” Biscuit Maker

I love the idea of the Bake A Bone, but the reality has been nothing but disappointing.

Once in awhile we like to bake treats for our five dogs, because we’re pretty careful about what we put in their mouths. In the past, that has meant recipes that we can roll out and cut with a cookie cutter, then bake in the oven. When we saw the Bake A Bone advertised, we had to have one.

What’s right: The product comes with a book of recipes, which is great. Not only does it offer many different ones, but it inspires experimentation. The company also sells prepared mixes.

What’s wrong: The first disappointment was that the Bake A Bone is mostly made of plastic. I can’t help but think that the execution of the product design could have been so much better. It works like a waffle maker, and only bakes 4 bones at a time. Each bake cycle is ten minutes long, so it takes a little more than an hour to bake two dozen. With five dogs, two dozen isn’t nearly enough.

Spongy.

The bone-shaped cavities are too deep, especially when the device is closed and locked while baking – which makes the molds twice as deep. The baking powder in the recipes causes the dough to rise when it is heated to expand into the top mold. I would rather have recipes with less baking powder and a shallower mold…the biscuits would be flatter and bake faster. As it is, it is very time consuming.

The finished bones are not biscuits or bones…they are more like a bread with a hard crust, and a spongy texture. (I should mention that my dogs don’t care that the bones are spongy, or that they are twice the thickness of a typical dog biscuit. All of that only matters to me.)

Cut in half along the seam, they are closer to traditional size…but still spongy in the middle unless they sit in a hot over for hours.

This past weekend when I baked treats, ( a three  hour project!)  I decided to cut the bones in half lengthwise along the seam to make them thinner. A regular serrated bread knife cut them neatly, which revealed a very bread-like interior. I preheated our oven to 350°, then turned it off and tossed all the halved bones into a baking pan, then slid it in the hot oven, and left it in there for a couple of hours. The bones were crunchy when I removed them.

A lot of work for what is essentially an inferior bone.

“Iz dey bizkits yet, Mama?”