A national shortage of possum dough called for creativity on the Otago Peninsula with the community rallying being the “Great Peninsula Possum Dough Bake Off”.

Possum dough is a sticky dough used on Trapinators to lure in possums. It has a strong smell of aniseed that lasts for a long time and is considered delicous by possums (but disgusting by cats).

A major supply issue at the manufacturers meant the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity group’s stocks of possum dough was dwindling rapidly. Yet, at the same time, the number of locals wanting to get involved with backyard trapping by hosting a Trapinator was growing.

The only thing for it was to run the inaugral Great Peninsula Possum Dough Bake Off with volunteers using their home baking skills to come up with a formula that could replace possum dough and meet the following criteria:

1. Be attractive to possums.

2. Be sticky enough to attach to the trap bite block, but not so sticky that it attaches to your fingers.

3. Lasts a decent amount of time in the trap.

4. Isn’t attractive to cats (nothing meat based or peanut butter based).

We tested the entries on some wild possums that were seen lurking out the back of Glendevon Street on one of our trail cameras. The great news for contestants is that every single entry put on offer was gobbled up by the two judges — Grey Male and Black Female.

Night 1

In a demonstration of what Operations Manager Bruce calls “first-day-itis”, the possum dough trial board was completely ignored, with the exception of a passing cat who took a pee on our efforts.

Night 2

All the possum dough was eaten by the two judges.

Night 3

Again, all the possum dough was eaten and the board was literally licked clean. The trail camera was also licked clean — a reminder to the producers to wash their hands before touching the camera!

Night 4

Instead of sticking the dough to the board, it was put inside two cage traps. Both judges were caught!

And the winner is…

Overall, it was a wonderful result! All the possum dough seemed to be enjoyed by the judges but there was a clear favourite…

Congratulations to Judy Rodda, who used an unexpected ingredient to come out as the star possum dough baker. She read that liquid onions have a similar smell to possum urine (who knew?) so once that was added to her batch they just couldn’t resist!

Judy’s award-winning recipe was an adaptation of a toffee recipe from BBC Good Food…

“I decided to cut the process for making toffee and didn’t use cream, instead used blended onion puree and soy milk. Not sure, but there may be a strong link to this step and needing to clean my favourite saucepan with a chisel...”

“I took the mixture and added flour, peanut oil and half a box of five-spice, until the mixture resembled a cookie dough. As it cooled it became increasingly hard yet crumbly. I took about a third of the mix and added a quarter cup of hazelnut spread and 2 - 3 tablespoons of coconut oil in the blender. It turned it into a rather oily paste. I did the same with the other two thirds. Still too goopy so I dug out the memory of children’s playdough and just added cornflour/starch until it resembled what was submitted.”

“Having done a bit more reading, I would follow the toffee recipe first, but not worry about scorching temp of 125 °C and no substitutions! Then I would use maybe half and half cornflour and flour to give a dough-like consistency and stickiness from toffee. I have found that eucalyptus is a big proportion of possum diet so either use essential oil or maybe gather eucalyptus leaves to blend in my concoction. The essential oil is a natural food preservative so may help stave off mould and rot from bacteria.”

“Cinnamon and all the spices in a five spice mix scored well on a taste test published in Pest Science.”

“I do not consider myself a creative cook but I do substitutions regularly and drive my husband a little crazy with recipes that are irreproducible!”

Thanks to all the bakers who whipped up some homemade possum dough for us to trial.