The Very Hungry Caterpillar Rolls (Pizza) and Butterfly Pizza

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a very popular Children's Book. It is the first book that we read to Neel and it has been a family favourite. It has a beautiful story of a caterpillar, starting out as an egg, developing into a caterpillar, the adventures as a caterpillar, then it gets a cocoon and finally becomes a butterfly.

On Sunday the egg pops and a tiny caterpillar comes out.
On Monday, it eats 1 Apple
On Tueday, it eats 2 Pears
On Wednesday it eats 3 Plums
On Thursday 4 Strawberries
On Friday 5 Oranges
On Saturday, loads of Junk and gets stomach ache
On Sunday, it eats a green leaf, gets a cocoon..
And finally becomes a beautiful butterfly

As you can see, it also teaches little ones Metamorphosis, Days of the week, counting, names of fruits, message about healthy eating.

What's more little ones just love the colours and illustration. And the little worm holes in all the food is adorable.



When Avant Garde Cookies decided to cook from your favourite cook book, my little one and I donned our Aprons and 'cooked' this bread/pizza. he enjoyed both the cooking and eating part. It was a fun project during Easter holidays.



For Dough

Ingredients

Bread Flour (Or All purpose flour) 1.5 cups
Fast Acting Yeast 1 7gm packet (21/4 tsp)
(Note : though I used 1 pkts, now I use only 1/2 and I find it has a better taste. So use just one)
Salt 1/2 tsp
Sugar 1/2 tbsp
Warm Milk little under 3/4 cup (use as required)

Oil a little to grease

Method of Preparation

1. In a bowl, add the flour, yeast, salt and sugar.

2. Warm the milk and add a little at a time and make a dough. Knead it well till it is all incorporated.

3. Apply a little oil all around. Place in a bowl. Cover with cling film and let it rise, till it doubles.

For Green Sauce (Pesto)

Ingredients

Basil leaves few
Parmesan cheese 2-3 tbsp (skip for vegan version)
Sunflower seeds 1 tbsp
Olive oil 3 tbsp

Method of Preparation

1. Add everything to a mixer (food processor) and blend into a paste.

Other ingredients

Mushrooms for legs
Green Pepper small bits for head
Carrots (or olives for eyes)
Tomato sauce for head
Mozerella grated (if making as a pizza)
Olive oil to brush



Putting Together the caterpillar

1. Divide the dough into 15 parts.

2. Take 3 parts and join to form a ball. This will be your head. Flatten it a little.

3. Roll the rest 12 pieces and flatten them. Arrange them to form the body.



4. Add mushroom legs.

5. Brush the caterpillar with oil.

6. Preheat oven to 230C. (I used a fan oven this time. So my baking time was very less). Bake for 8-10 minutes. (It usually takes me more time).

7. If making as Pizza, Spread the sauce and add cheese toppings to all the body and head. I did not make it as a Pizza.

8. Once out of the oven, apply the green sauce for body and red sauce for head. Add eyes, mouth etc to head.

Once the caterpillar was made and enjoyed, my son asked me for more the next day. I had some dough and decided to surprise him with a Butterfly Pizza!





Enjoy!!



For the Butterfly Pizza, I used the same quantity of dough. Shaped as shown in the photo. Used Pesto as sauce. You can use Tomato sauce as well. For the top wings we topped with mushroom and bottom ones we used pineapple as they are my little ones fav toppings. You can use any of your choice.

Check out the other AGC thoughout this week 
Anusha, Jayanthi, Kavitha, Priya M, Radhika, Priya S