In which we are feeling seedy...

I've been making soda bread packed full of pepitas, sunflower seeds and other seedy goodness.  I know you must all be sick of me saying this, but I think this might be my new favourite loaf!  I guess I'm just fickle when it comes to bread.  The best thing about soda bread is that you don't have to wait around for it to rise.  If I wake up in the morning and realise there is nothing for the lunch boxes, there is still time to whip some up.  This particular recipe is from this month's Delicious magazine.

The sight of all those seeds while I was baking last week inspired a little activity for the kids.  We made bird seed cakes to hang in the trees in our garden as treats for the visiting native feathered folk.  

Basically we dissolved 28g of gelatine in 1 cup of boiling water, then added about 3 cups of birdseed.  We weren't too precise with this - you can add a little more seed if you need to make the mixture fairly stiff.  We greased some moulds with oil and then spooned the mix in.  We put a loop of string (for hanging) in each cake and covered it in the birdseed mix so it would set inside the cake.  The moulds went into the fridge for a few hours to set.  To remove the moulds you dip them in hot water for around 10 seconds and the bird seed cake should slip out easily.  Since this made heaps of bird cakes the kids wrapped some up and gave them to friends.