Horse Cookies of the “stud muffin” type…

Our Appaloosa loves these expensive German stud muffin cookies. A few places sell them, but they are kind of pricey, especially if you have to order them online and pay for shipping.

So I’ve been making my own. To be honest, I don’t normally follow a recipe, but a friend asked me to write one down because her horse loves them too. So… here is my latest “version.”

• 2 cups HOT water
• 2 cups barn oats (as in the kind you feed horses)
• 2 cups rolled oats (extra points for using steel cut)
• 1 cup flax meal or ground flax seed
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup apple sauce (or pureed fruit, last batch I took some pears from our yard that I’d frozen and pureed them with a bit of water)
• 1/2 whole wheat flour
• 1 cup molasses (this is the magic)
• Other things you might want to add, like peppermints in the middle of pumpkin seeds, etc.

An important part to this recipe is the hot water. I heat mine in the microwave and then add the oats (both kinds) to it. Then I let it sit a bit to soften and get a bit sticky.

Once that has sat five minutes or so, stir everything else in. The consistency should be that you can drop it from a tablespoon onto a cookie sheet and it will hold its form pretty well.

Now either do the above for smaller treats or spray muffin tins with some Pam type cooking spray and pack the dough in to make actual muffins.

Bake at 350 degrees (325 if you have a convection oven) for 14 minutes or so for the drops and 17 for smaller muffins. (not minis, but not full sized normal either… adjust baking time dependent on the size of your muffins tins.) The tops should still be soft when you take them out. They will firm up more as they cool and they will burn easily because of the molasses.

Cool and store in the fridge or freezer depending on how quickly you are going to use them.

Or… buy them premade!