This is a great recipe that we use for making play dough. My Mum used to make play dough for me & now I use the same recipe for my girls. Visitors that play with it think it is great & I am always giving out the recipe so I thought I would put it on here for everyone. It is a soft consistency making it great for younger kids who I find often have trouble pushing the stiffer commercial play dough through extractors etc. The stirring is hard work but it is worth it & the dough will last for months if stored in the fridge in a zip lock plastic bag.
To colour it I use gel food colours as it takes much less to get nice bright colours but liquid food colours work fine. I always save any gel colours I use for cake icing etc that pass their expiry dates & use it for play dough as I know that no one will be eating it (well not much of it anyway).
Please note that this makes quite a large amount of play dough, I often halve this recipe if I want just one colour.
Ingredients:
4 cups of Flour
1 1/2 cups Salt
1/2 cup Cream of Tartar
4 cups Water
4 Tablespoons of Vegetable or Salad Oil
Food Colouring
Food Essence (Optional)
Fine Glitter (Optional)
Add the first five ingredients to a large pot & stir well. Add food colouring and essence if using. Remember that the colour does darken slightly once cooked.
Cook over a medium heat stirring constantly. This becomes hard work once it starts to thicken but you need to stir until it has thickened a large blog that isn’t sticky to the touch.
Remove play dough from the pot and spread out to cool slightly before kneading until a smooth, soft consistency is reached.
Here I have divided the play dough into two and added some darker pink colouring to the second lot while kneading.
You can also knead in glitter for a sparkly look.
The play dough is now ready for playing!
