Homemade Playdough Recipe

03/18/2015

I have a confession to make. In a mad cleaning binge last Spring, I secretly packed up all my son’s Play-Doh and sold it off in a garage sale. Those little bits of Play-Doh guts all over the house drove me bananas. Plus, I thought at 4 years old he was past the Play-Doh stage. Turns out that I was wrong. He constantly reminds me how much he loves Play-Doh and that I should not sell off his toys without asking 😉

A few months ago we decided we would make homemade playdough together. Most of the ingredients can be found in your pantry. However, it took me almost two months to find the key ingredient – Cream Of Tartar. Turns out, it’s not a cream at all! It’s a white powder and can be found in a spice type jar in the baking section of your grocery store. I finally found it when I googled an image of it – so here it is in all it’s glory – Cream Of Tartar!

I found this homemade play dough recipe on The Imagination Tree and it worked perfectly! I like it because it’s a no cook recipe, very easy for little hands to help you create!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain white flour (don’t use whole wheat)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• Up to 1.5 cups boiling water (adding in increments until it feels just right)
• Food colouring (optional)

Method:

• Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl
• Divide the mixture equally into smaller bowls if you want to make different coloured dough
• Add food colouring to the boiling water then into the dry ingredients
• Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough
• Allow it to cool
• Take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency! If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right. If it’s too dry, add more water.

Be sure to store it in an airtight container, or Ziploc Freezer bag.

Since Easter is around the corner, we decided to fill some plastic eggs with the matching colour of playdough. It was a great March Break activity and will make the the perfect Easter gift for his teacher and classmates!