Bird suet help (1 Viewer)

[blueballoon]

I'm going to make my own suet but was wondering, why do most recipes call for cornmeal? What does it do and would the cakes do just fine without it? My local butcher is nice enough to give away their suet from freshly slaughtered cows. I plan to melt it down and mix in peanut butter, peanuts, and berries. Then pour into a mold and store it in a freezer. Does that sound right? Never done this before .

I also read that melting the fat can be smelly and some cook outside. I only have indoor cooking supplies, is it really that malodorous or is it still doable inside? Thanks!

 

[Kits]

I haven't seen any recipes using cornmeal (is that like cornflour?) in the UK. I wonder if it is used to bind the ingredients together? When I have made suet blocks, I have just melted the fat and added in chopped nuts, seeds and sunflower hearts. I have always made them in my kitchen and don't remember any horrendous smells!

 

[blueballoon]

I haven't seen any recipes using cornmeal (is that like cornflour?) in the UK. I wonder if it is used to bind the ingredients together? When I have made suet blocks, I have just melted the fat and added in chopped nuts, seeds and sunflower hearts. I have always made them in my kitchen and don't remember any horrendous smells!

Hey! Thanks for the response. It seems like cornmeal is sort of like cornflour but coarser and have somewhat different uses in cooking. One discussion I read over the net is that cornmeal has been used, as you suggested, to bind/harden the suet better. Well...cornmeal is pretty cheap anyways so I thought why not! I got some. I made my first set of bird cakes today!

When the fat melted, it did start to smell...but then the peanut butter melted with it and now it just smells like peanut butter cookies in the kitchen haha. :-O

I used: 1 part fat trimmings and 1 part cornmeal. The fat trimmings were melted with the peanut butter in a pan until as much as possible was melted (not all the fat liquified but no probs). On the side I mixed a bowl with crushed peanuts, crushed and sanitized egg shells, some stale bread, and dried cranberries and the cornmeal of course. Poured the heated material into the mixing bowl, mixed, and put into molds and froze it.

I'm so excited, can't wait to see how the birds take to it! I'll post pics of the final product! They look tasty to me .

 

[Kits]

Great stuff! Let us know how the birds react. Well done. :t:

 

[blueballoon]

Making my own suet has been a lot of fun! What luck that the suet is given away for free, sure saves money from buying it! Something has been chomping on the cake, I got the first glance today, it was a downy woodpecker.

I also experimented and plainly just melted the fat trimmings to liquid, added in crushed peanuts, put into molds and froze, those also look pretty good .

Pics below. 1) The original peanut suet cake recipe on the left and new recipe on the right. 2) Pic of a suet cake partly eaten :-D.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc283/hongyin1_photos/PICT0137.jpg

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc283/hongyin1_photos/PICT0138.jpg

 

[Kits]

Haven't you done well! Very professional looking cakes and clearly they taste good too. :t: