bird suet receipe too hard (1 Viewer)

[dovetail]

bird cake receipe too hard

I made first recipe using real beef dripping from the butcher, flour, cornflour, flour and seeds. It set abit too soft and crumbly and so was eaten very quickly.

I later made a second recipe based from member TobyH using blocks of beef dripping, lard, Atora suet, Atora vegetable suet, peanut butter, oat, cornflour and wholemeal flour, all from supermarket. complete with lots of seeds and mealworms. It set hard, alittle too hard. It maybe ideal for winter but it is just too hard for summer.

Too much lard?

 

[dovetail]

The cake hardness is fine if you want it to last. I think the lard increased it's hardness.

 

[mercury]

Hello Dovetail, What's going on here ? I've been making fat cakes using lard as a setting agent and the outcome has been very soft cakes. They mess your hands just handling them and don't ever set hard. Could it be that I only use enough heat to melt the fat and never boil or over heat it. I will try using greater heat and post the outcome. Mean while if there are any chefs out there who could help lets hear from you !!

 

[dafi]

Use less flour!

Im not a fan of suet feeders in the summer time, my thinking being that the fat goes rancid very quickly and i am allways suspicious that im going to poison everything with salmonella or some other pathogen.

 

[dovetail]

I have alot different birds coming now. They fine working at the hard suet but they prefer it softer. It ideal for using soft or hard. What i do is melt a suet block up in the microwave and mash it up into a fine suet crumble, which still drys that way. The birds prefer it this way as they in nice little mouthfuls. They get through about 2lb of suet every day. The birds are loving it, even at this time of year.

Here is my fine luxury recipe for birdtable and floor feeders.

1 500g block of beef dripping
2 250g of lard
1 box of Atora shredded suet
1 box of Atora shredded vegetable suet
1 whole jar of crunchy peanut butter.
200g of rolled oats
3 tablespoons of cornflour
3 tablespoons of wholemeal flour
apple nibbles processed from 3 apples


I add a rich filling of:

pinhead oatmeal
peanut nibbles
sunflower hearts
white millet
sultanas
cracked corn

Add filling until the whole mixture is super thick. Heat up on a low heat. I also add lots of mealworms to the filling.

I pour out into aluminium foil trays which make it easy to remove the suet blocks. Surprisingly first time it made all available 8 trays exactly. Bendy silicon cake tray would also be ideal. I believe i made it harder by squashing down the lid trays very hard before freezing. I learnt if you heat up the fat then let it cool, then heat it up a second time, then it sets harder. It still sets hard leaving in fridge.

You can see from the bottom side of the suet block that's it's absolutely stuffed with the filling, with mealworms and sultanas sticking out it looks very appetizing and smells highly of peanut butter.

I throw out to the birds with added suet insect pellets. I got the millet to attract sparrows but all birds seem happy to eat it when in the suet. I added the sultanas and apple particularly for the blackbirds.

I also made a giant suet cake which only lasted 1 week. I lined a suet pellet drum with 2 carrier bags and poured the suet mix into this. This made it easy to lift the whole cake out. The cake formed a extra 1 inch thick fat topping. I cut blocks off this as i needed which i then put into a carrier bag and then into microwave until desired softness. I can then sprinkle this around coarse or fine.

I sometimes add a dry mix of the filling to the suet crumble to make it slightly drier still.

Tips: Do not use black sunflowers in suet, only use hulled seeds. Remember to soak the sultanas and mealworms first in hot water. I would probably do away with the 2x lard and use instead another beef dripping.

 

[dovetail]

I only been feeding the birds a month and this is what i had so far including many babies.

4 male blackbirds
2 female blackbirds
starlings
magpie
wood pigeons
collared doves
blue tits
coal tit
great tits
jackdaw
lesser or greater spotted woodpecker
male chaffinch

Now from this week i get 4 female chaffinches coming everyday together and finally a shy robin.

No thrushes.

 

[jackied]

Mine don't last long enough to go rancid, I put out 9 bought fat balls and one hand made fat coconut per day, and it's all gone by the next morning.
Jackie

 

[dafi]

Spot on Jax, thats what you want!!