I've been making homemade playdough ever since I was a child - literally. My mother never (ever) bought play-doh from the store, but made it so that was what I knew growing up. When I had children we did buy Play-Doh and Play-Doh sets from the store (and still do) but made tons of homemade as well - to supplement, to make more to share, and to just 'enjoy' when the store bought versions were too hard to use in some of the play-sets. The squishy homemade versions are so soft, and more affordable!
This post comes about because I have some 'old' flour to use up from our emergency storage, and playdough is one of the items I chose to use it up on.
This post comes about because I have some 'old' flour to use up from our emergency storage, and playdough is one of the items I chose to use it up on.
I also wanted to use up some celtic salt I don't like as well as 2 of the flavor extracts I'm not a fan of! I don't want to use any of these in cooking or baking so they were perfect to make into tons of playdough.
SUPER SOFT, SQUISHY HOMEMADE PLAYDOUGH
2 c flour
3/4 c salt
4 t cream of tartar
2 c water
2 T oil of choice (I used cheap, vegetable oil)
food color and extracts of choice (or use some powdered Kool-Aid from a packet)
Dump all your ingredients into a saucepan on the stove. Cook over medium, stirring constantly. It will start to thicken and get sticky. Keep stirring. It will start to turn into a ball and hold together. Remove from heat. Remove from the pan and plop it out onto wax or parchment paper to cool a little bit - it will still be sticky. As soon as you can work with it without burning your hands, start to knead it. As you knead it, it comes together. When it's smooth and pliable, and cooled, it's ready to use. Store it in a plastic bag to keep it soft.
3/4 c salt
4 t cream of tartar
2 c water
2 T oil of choice (I used cheap, vegetable oil)
food color and extracts of choice (or use some powdered Kool-Aid from a packet)
Dump all your ingredients into a saucepan on the stove. Cook over medium, stirring constantly. It will start to thicken and get sticky. Keep stirring. It will start to turn into a ball and hold together. Remove from heat. Remove from the pan and plop it out onto wax or parchment paper to cool a little bit - it will still be sticky. As soon as you can work with it without burning your hands, start to knead it. As you knead it, it comes together. When it's smooth and pliable, and cooled, it's ready to use. Store it in a plastic bag to keep it soft.
You can wait and not add the food color until later if you want more than one color per batch
It's sticky but comes together when you knead it.
Plop it out of the pan and start to knead it into a ball when it's cool enough to work with
I used good quality gel and powdered color to get the vibrant shades
