World Book Day: The Hungry Caterpillar Smoothie

Little did I know that when I wrote my first World Book Day post a couple of years back that it would become my most popular post of all time racking up more than 20,000 views! I have to admit that Gruffalo Crumble recipe is simple and delicious…it’s simply delicious.

Seeing as it was so successful, I thought I’d try another spin on a popular children’s book; The Hungry Caterpillar. Again, I wanted a recipe that would involve minimal effort and maximum child participation. As The Hungry Caterpillar has a lot of fruit in the story, I opted for a smoothie.

Our Shopping List

Hungry Caterpillar Smoothie

Of course, you could use any fruits to make a Hungry Caterpillar smoothie but I thought it would be fun to write a little shopping list of those mentioned in the book and go shop for them. As it was half term, this was an easy way to fill the majority of the day and get us out of the house to boot.

Buying our fruit

We also added some fruit juice to get the right consistency. The girls choose pineapple juice but apple or orange juice I’m sure would work just as well and are both fruits that are in the story.

Ingredients

  • 2 small apples
  • 2 small pears
  • 3 plums
  • 5 large strawberries
  • a quarter of a large watermelon
  • 200ml fruit juice (adjust quantity as desired)

1) Allow children to chop up the fruit. start with the softer fruit such as the strawberries and work up to hard fruits such as apples.

TIP: Use this opportunity to practise knife skills. Demonstrate how to hold the knife safely and where to place hands.

2) Add all the fruit pieces to a food blender. We used one that has a jug but a food processor or hand blender would work too.

3)Pour in the fruit juice.

4)Blend the mixture for a minute or two until there are no longer any more lumps.

5)Serve

Whilst the girls enjoyed the smoothie, we reread the story and discussed whether they could taste the different fruits mentioned in our Hungry Caterpillar smoothie. You may like to add a little treat to the occasion and there are plenty to choose from in the book.

Here are a few suggestions:

  • chocolate cake (we had some chocolate muffins)
  • ice cream
  • lollipop
  • cheery pie
  • cupcake

We also raided the girl’s play food to see how many of the other food items we could find. For older children, this activity could also raise discussions on eating your 5 a day and avoiding overindulging.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe in the very loose sense of the word and it’s inspired you to celebrate world book day with a fantastic book. I’d love to hear if you’ve got any other ideas for book-inspired recipes that I can try.

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hungry caterpillar smoothie

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