Bird cake recipe

[dampflippers]

Another "Blue Peter" style make!

I spotted my first long tailed tits of the winter yesterday (but not in our garden).

So I have just made a batch of bird cake as my order of sunflower hearts came from Haiths (v good value at the moment on 20kg sack)

Using a coffee grinder, grind peanuts and / or sunflower hearts a little at a time. I made quite alot, but it will store in a tub.

Melt fat- residue from frying/ roasting or lard or suet etc in a pyrex dish in microwave. Watch it all the time.

When melted, stir in ground nuts, some ordinary bird seed, dried meal worms and sultanas as desired. Keep adding until it is fairly solid.

Get some plastic cups, and line each with a cheap plastic bag (eg Wilkinsons). Stand cups up in a tray or box.

Spoon a couple of spoons into each cup and press down with the back of a spoon.

My batch used about 3/4 of a block of fat and made 12 2/3 full cups.

Leave them to cool and solidfy.

Making them in plastic bags means that they are easy to get out of the cups, and easy to turn out into a fat ball feeder.

Hope your birds like them!

[Anyanka]

Thank you! I'll try that. I don't have a coffee grinder. Do you think it'll work with a mezzaluna (the rocking double-bladed chopping knife-type-thing)?

We've had occasional visits from long-tailed tits recently. They are so pretty! They turn up in a gang, feed a bit and leave, unlike the other titmouse birds which come and go in small numbers all day long.

[alison]

We have often made them putting the birdseed and sunflowers and also small pieces of bread and sultanas into clean yoghurt pots. I hadn't thought about a plastic bag, but that would be so much easier to get it out. Good thinking Damp. I usually went round with a knife when it was set to loosen them up. It is good to know we are all trying to help the birds get through the winter.