Recipe For The Birds.

After posting yesterday about feeding the wild birds, I have decided to add a quick and easy recipe for making homemade suet cakes.

They can be made inexpensively, and in bulk quantity, and offer a wholesome and life sustaining treat to our feathered friends.

Homemade Suet Cakes.

Making homemade suet cakes is simply a matter of melting fat down to a pour-easy consistency, adding a few ingredients of your choosing, then pouring the mixture into a mold. The shape of the mold is determined by the type of suet feeder you'll use.

If you are using lard or shortening for homemade suet cakes, adding equal parts of crunchy peanut butter flour will help maintain correct consistency of regular suet cakes.

To this warm and pour-able mixture you could add rolled oats, bird seed, cornmeal, raisins, unsalted nuts and anything else you think the birds would enjoy.

Then, pour your warm suet 'soup' into the mold (a bread pan where you could slice off bits for your store bought suet feeder, cupcake tins that you could pierce with wire and hang from a tree, etc.)

Keep any unused portions in the freezer for up to two months.

Things You'll Need:
Saucepan
lard or beef suet

quick oats
peanut butter (crunchy is better)
cornmeal
seeds
raisins
bread crumbs
container for mold
bird seed

Step 1
Place 1 cup of lard and 1 cup of creamy peanut butter in a saucepan over very low heat. Stir until melted.

Step 2
To the melted shortening mixture, add 3 cups plain cornmeal. Mix thoroughly.

Step 3
Here's the fun part...stir in any combination of the following: quick oats, raisins, chopped apple, bird seed, bread crumbs, or dried berries. Stir until combined.

Step 4
Pour into a plastic container lined with aluminum foil. Place in the refrigerator to cool.

Step 5
Once the suet is cooled and solid, slice into squares and place into your suet cage. Suet cages can be found with the bird feeders at most home centers.

Step 6
Store any remaining squares in the refrigerator.

If you prefer, you can roll out the mixture when cool enough to handle, and using cookie cutters cut into any shape you prefer. Insert a straw to make a hole, and add ribbon or jute string.

Hang from a tree branch.

Enjoy watching your feathered friends!