To celebrate the return to our screens of TV favourite ‘The Great British Bake Off’, Alison Gallagher-Hughes heads into the kitchen to try some canine cookery. On your marks, get set, bake!

The Innocent Hound cake, decorated with banana, blueberries and cream cheese, Vet Chef Venison and Beetroot Love Hearts, and surrounded by the Sniffe & Likkit bite-sized cakes.

As an avid fan of what goes on inside ‘the tent’ I felt it was time to don my apron, get out the mixing bowls, and prepare the perfect bake. It’s years since I’ve done any baking… once you’ve created cakes or biscuits, they need to be eaten and that has an obvious impact on the waistline!

But I do enjoy the creativity of baking, combining ingredients, mixing textures and flavours, with the resulting ‘hey presto’ when it comes out of the oven.

Over recent years there has been an increasing interest in home cooking for dogs — be that daily diet or as an occasional alternative to cans or kibble. Making sure the ingredients are suitable and the nutritional balance just right is something of a learning experience.

Alongside this is the changing nature of our relationships with our dogs. Behaviour experts put this down to anthropomorphization — attributing human traits and behaviours to our four-legged friends. This has led to a variety of products being produced for dogs that are not essential but increasingly desired as our dogs have become ‘part of the family’. This includes a boom in treats production — many brands, varieties, and flavours — and pet gifts including cakes and biscuits.