These Cookies are for the Birds!

by Alissa Marquess on February 11, 2012

 Birdseed Heart Cookies-

This is such a  simple recipe for birdseed cookies.  All you need is gelatin, birdseed and water.  The mixture simply air dries and becomes a hard birdseed cookie.  I found the recipe and wonderful directions at Bargain Hoot.  My recipe is slightly different, but please see instructions here for a her ideas on how to shape and add twine hangers to these cookies.

The recipe I came up with is very similar, it just uses less gelatin.  It held together quite well once the bird cookies dried.

Birdseed CookiesBirdseed Cookie Recipe:

  • One gelatin packet (one of those small ones, I guess there is about two tablespoons of gelatin in one)
    dissolve into:
  • 3/4 C water
    mix in:
  • 2 to 2 1/2 C amaranth and millet (or other birdseed of your choice) With larger seeds I found I needed to ad more seeds to the mixture

The resulting mixture will be pretty wet at first.  Let it begin to gel for a while, stirring occasionally before you use cookie cutters or your hands to shape the mixture into cookies on a sheet of aluminum foil or parchment paper.  The cookies can air dry over night.  The paper will make it easier to flip the cookies part way through the drying.

We decorated the tops of ours by pressing raisins and pumpkin seeds into the birdseed mixture while it was still in the cookie cutter. My kids were able to participate in making these by mixing and decorating.  If I was in a more patient mood they could have helped with filling the cookie cutters too.

Hanging Birdseed Cookies

Their favorite part, however, was hanging our birdseed cookies out for the birds!

 

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Crystal @ Growing A Jeweled Rose February 12, 2012 at 7:41 am

These are so cute! I am going to make a few to hang from the tree in our yard. Thanks for the great idea!

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Carla February 14, 2012 at 11:22 am

Wow! We really are plugged into the same wave length. We made bird seed cookies too! It has been so fun to watch the birds eat them, I wish I could get a picture!

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