guinea pig treats
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Guinea Pig Treats
Guinea Pig Birthday Cake - Perfect Treat
Its your guinea pigs birthday! Wouldn’t it be fun to make a special cake for your furry friend? Its very simple and easy, all you need to get started is an assortment of your piggie’s favorite fruit, veggies, and herbs. Plus, this is the time to add small amounts of tasty foods that might normally be too heavy in sugar such as dried berries, apricots, figs, or dates. After that – all you need is your own creativity!
Equipment that you will need:
You will need one or more of the following: a knife, food processor, mandolin, salad shooter, or blender.
A attractive but not too delicate plate, dish, bowl, or cup. Make sure the sides are not too high.
If using a plate you may want to use a mold to help you stack the cake. This could be a clean tuna can with the top and bottom removed, or a cookie/biscuit cutter.
Ingredients:
Fruits: blueberries, blackberries, cherries (must be pitted), cranberries, strawberries, currants, gooseberries, cantaloupe, honey dew, kiwi, apples, pears, apricot, peach, mango, papaya
Veggies: bell peppers, artichoke, asparagus, carrots, small pieces of celery, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes
Green Leafy Veggies: kale, collard greens, swiss chard, mustard, dandelion, beet, spinach, carrot tops, pea shoots, green lettuce, butter lettuce, red lettuce, frisse, arugula, endive, radicchio
Herbs: cilantro, parsley, basil, dill, mint, thyme, chives
Instructions
Step 1: Decide on your theme
Are you going to make two small separate cakes one only fruit and the other all veggie? Do you want to combine? What about doing a season theme like cucumbers, lettuce, mixed herbs, and tomatoes for summer? Or how about a little cooked pumpkin or sweet potato, avocado (not too much), cilantro, sweet bell peppers and corn for a fall theme? Also decide if you want to cut your veggies into little squares, thin disks (cucumber would work well for this), a puree (such as for sweet potato) or a mixture. The shape you choose should depend on how hard or soft your ingredients are and how you choose to present them. You don’t want the cake refusing to stack…Also, this is the time to decide if you want to fashion vegetable “candles” out of carrots, apples, asparagus, or sweet bell peppers. If so, set those items aside.
Step 2: Prep the ingredients
Use your knife, food processor, blender, etc to chop about half of all of the vegetables and fruits into bite sized pieces. The remaining could be pureed if you choose. This could be purely decorative or used as a binding agent.
Step 3: Mold or layer the cake
Here you have a few options. You can use a plate and layer all of your ingredients in thin layers to make a “pizza” type shape. You can combine all of your ingredients in a bowl and then mound everything together using a spoon and your hands. You can artfully layer the ingredients according to color and use a mold. Or you can layer everything in a fancy see-through dish.
Step 4: Add real or veggie candles
Be sure to remove wax candles before eating and check for wax drips. Do not use celery stalks for candles as this is hard for your guinea pig to digest.
Step 5: Add decorations
This could be sprinkles of finely chopped herbs, dried fruits, a decorative circle of cherry tomatoes or berries…its up to you.
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