Gruffalo Crumble

The title for this post will really have you scratching your head unless you've had the fortune of reading a delightful picture book my husband brought home from the library last week. The kids simply couldn't stop reading/talking about/reciting The Gruffalo written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. I think all of my talking children memorized the entire book just for fun!

In the book, a mouse scares off a big monster-- a gruffalo to be exact-- in quite the clever way. In the process, he mentions his favorite dish--gruffalo crumble. If you're trying to convince your boy that brains can trump brawn, this is the book for you. 

The children and I decided to create our own gruffalo crumble--best served with owl ice cream. We had fun planning our own recipe based on the book. 

We started with a granola base for the crumble part. Next we tried to add ingredients that matched the description of the gruffalo. We used dried apricots for the orange eyes, slivered almonds for claws and/or tusks, white chocolate chips for terrible teeth, raisins for his black tongue, pumpkin seeds for the poisonous wart, dried mulberries for knobbly knees, and purple sprinkles for the purple back prickles. It tasted great on our "owl" ice cream, and they're hoping to have it on yogurt for breakfast sometime soon. We did decide, however, that we need to find something else purple because the sprinkles just settled to the bottom and didn't have much of a taste anyway. If you come up with something better, leave a comment so we can try it, too.

In fact, feel free to use the following recipe, but your children would probably like brainstorming their own add-ins from the book. This is an extremely kid-friendly recipe because it's just measuring, dumping, and stirring. The measurements don't even need to be exact. 

Gruffalo Crumble

4 cups granola (store-bought or homemade)

1/2 cup dried apricots, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup dried white mulberries

1/4 cup purple sprinkles

In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients. Serve on ice cream, yogurt, or with milk--or grab by the handful for a quick snack.