Feed the Birds: My Grandmother’s Homemade Suet Cake Recipe

Suet is an excellent source of energy for birds. You can provide plain suet, or mix it with nuts, raisins, and other fruit. You can buy the mixture, or make your own. One of the benefits of making your own suet cake is saving money as well as knowing what’s in it. Suet can be provided in a variety of feeders: smeared on a branch or log or even on a pine cone, in a suet cage, in a tray, or in a mesh bag (like in the kind onions come in).

Here is my grandmother’s recipe which is a hit with Chickadees, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, and even Redpolls, as you can see from the photos below. My grandmother reminded me that birds enjoy this in the summer, and one of the benefits of this recipe, since it’s not straight suet, is that it’s not very drippy when the temperature gets warmer.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lard and some bacon grease (or the fat of your choice) [edited/updated to add: if you are vegetarian or vegan, you could try substituting your favourite type of solid vegetable shortening, like Crisco — you might have to add more cornmeal and flour ]
• 2 cups peanut butter
• 6 cups cornmeal
• 5 cups flour
• any dried fruit or nuts you’d like to add

Directions:

Melt the lard/fat with the peanut butter, then add cornmeal, flour, and any dried fruit and/or nuts to the mixture and stir well. Let it cool and harden in any container, and then it’s ready to put on a tray feeder, in a suet cage, or in a tin can. If you make the whole recipe and have too much, it freezes very well.

If you have a favorite recipe, please share it in the comments!

White-breasted Nuthatch in my grandparents’ yard,

Downy Woodpecker,

Red-breasted Nuthatch,