Mince pies just for birds

I’m not ashamed to admit that this year’s Waitrose Christmas ad got me in the festive mood. If you’ve not seen it, it features a robin braving the perils of migration from Scandinavia to get some grub in a UK garden. Obviously we’re big fans of feeding garden birds, so here’s a recipe for a mince pie that’s exclusively for feathered garden visitors. And there’s no cooking involved so little ones can take the lead!  

Ingredients 

200g suet 

a slice of bread turned into breadcrumbs

about 75g hard cheese (cheddar works well)

a handful of raisins

a handful of mealworms

cup cake papers

this makes 4 generous mince pies

Method

1. Mix suet, grated cheese, some seeds and a handful of breadcrumbs (to help bind it) together in a bowl. Ensure the suet is room temperature to make it easy to work with. 
2. Work it into a rough dough, and make small discs of with your hands. 
3. Put cupcake papers into a cupcake tin (I missed this step and it made extracting them very difficult!) and insert your dough discs  
4. Use a mix of raisins and mealworms to make your filling in a separate bowl and use a spoon to fill your pies.  
5. Make another disc with your hands and put it on top to enclose the filling. 
6. Put your loaded cup cake tin in the fridge to harden the suet.
7. They should be pretty solid after an hour. Take them out and put them in the garden.
8. Wait for hungry visitors to arrive!

Here's the finished result:

More like a scone than a pie I'll admit. Use cupcake papers for a more refined finish! A few feathered visitors have already taken an interest.