Instructions

1. Use turkey breast mince rather than a fattier grind. Fat will not dry, and it goes rancid in a treat jar long before the meat does.
2. Thaw and drain the beans or peas, then chop them small. Frozen vegetables let go of water as they warm, and that water ends up inside the patty.
3. Press the pumpkin purée against a sieve if it looks loose. It is largely water, and none of the tricks you would use to disguise that in a human recipe are available here.
4. Work everything together with your hands, eggshell powder included, until the carrot and cranberry are evenly spread. A pocket of cranberry is a sweet wet patch and it will be the first part to spoil.
5. Flatten each one rather than rolling a ball, and size them for your own dog. A ball twice the diameter takes far more than twice as long, because the heat has that much further to travel to the middle.
6. Dry at 72 °C for 12 hours. The setting is high and it is not negotiable — raw poultry is going in, and the temperature is there for the dog rather than for the texture.
7. A finished patty breaks in half dry and shows the same colour through the break as on its face. A darker, softer core sends the whole tray back.
8. Cool them right down, then seal them in a bag in a cool cupboard for two to four weeks, or freeze them for six months. Nothing in this is a preservative, so a treat that smells sour or feels slick means the batch goes out.