Gerard's post got my attention. Here is Paul's recipe, from the archives.
Sylvia Wright
Nevada County, Calif.
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//www.freelists.org/post/obol/feeding-suet-cakes
Nov 23 2016
Folks, here's what Carol & I have done.
Feeders: We have two cage-within-a-cage rectangular feeders. The suet is
in the inside cage. Little birds can get in through the outer mesh.
Flickers and scrub jays have long enough necks/bills to reach the suet, but
starlings and squirrels can't reach.
Suet: Home-made, no melt (in hot weather)
Mix:
2 cup cornmeal (bulk bin at grocery store)
2 cup quick oats (bulk bin at grocery store)
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
Melt together:
1 cup lard (Mexican food isle at grocery store)
1 cup chunky peanut butter (be careful not to scorch it).
Stir in the combined dry ingredients and mix.
Press into rectangular plastic tubs (the kind lunch meat comes in), score
across the middle, cool. Pop out of mold, break at score and freeze. Each
cake is 2.25" X 3.5"
The birds will eat this and ignore the store-bought stuff.
We get Downy, Flicker, Bewick's Wren, chickadees, nuthatches, bushtits, song
sparrow, House sparrow, Yellow-rump and other warblers, Scrub Jay, and
probably some I'm forgetting.
Paul Sullivan
