That's For The Birds

I made a couple birdseed wreaths yesterday. They turned out very nice and make great gifts!

Here's my recipe:

Use a pan large enough to hold at least 7 cups.

Bring 1 1/4 cup of water to boiling.

Remove from heat and add 3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin.

Stir until dissolved completely.

Slowly stir in 6 cups birdseed and decorative items (I used some dried flowers. You can use anything that won't hurt the birds and that they'll like - cranberries, nuts, small interesting sticks, etc.) I've found that a 50/50 mix of regular birdseed and black oil sunflower seed is what draws a bigger crowd. After all, what's the point of making these and then the birds won't touch them?

Press into bundt pan well greased with vegetable shortening. Or you can use any interestingly shaped pan. Bread pans also work great - just put a toilet paper tube toward one end (make sure to leave plenty of room between the tp roll and the end of the pan you're using!) and fill around the tube.

Refrigerate for a few hours until firmed. (I leave them in overnight).

Remove onto a wired rack to dry for a day or two. (may take a bit of tapping on the pan to get them out).

String decorative ribbons through hole to hang in tree or place on a door. (you can hang them anywhere you'd like). You can add more decorations to the outside if you wish - nothing that will hurt the birds!

Since I had some extra globe amaranth hanging around, I added half of it to the pan before pressing the seed in so it would show more, then just stirred the rest into the birdseed mix. Turned out beautiful!

Since Thanksgiving is so close, why not set some cranberries aside to share with your feathered winter entertainers? :) They look beautiful in these wreaths, as do small pieces of apple (I stick these to the outside afterwords) and oranges or their peels. I suppose if you used one of those curly rind gizmos for the oranges or even lemons it would look very festive!

The second one I added some nuts and that came out pretty cool too.

Have fun with them. The birds sure will. Just don't expect them to last too long once they find them!