I've never been much for buying things I can make. Especially things that can be ingested by my kids. Play dough is just one of those things that always gave me the willies when my first babe was little. I was fairly determined to make something that he could play with that would have a few "better" features than the store bought variety. I wanted the dough to be more pliable and easier to work with, for small hands still in motor development stages. I wanted it to be fairly odourless. I wanted it to be non-toxic as I was pretty certain that some of it would end up in my little guy's mouth.
I stumbled upon a homemade play dough recipe about 9 years ago and have been making it ever since. I've tried to remember the original source of the recipe over the years but I only draw blanks. I'm not even sure how close to the original our recipe has remained as I've tweaked it over the years, out of necessity I might add, as I haven't had a stellar memory in remembering ingredients.
Well here it is for you to give a whirl.
Homemade Play dough
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 TBSP of cream of tartar
1 cup of water
1 TBSP of vegetable oil
a few drops of food coloring (or cake decorating pigment)
Whisk dry ingredients together in a saucepan then add the wet ingredients. With a wooden spoon, stir and cook on medium heat until mixture becomes thick and pulls away from the sides of pot. Remove the dough from the pot and let it cool; then kneed it a few times to give it a smooth consistency. This stage also helps to set the colors of you are using the cake decorating pigments. I prefer the cake decorating pigments because the colors are more vibrant.
As for storing, I use plastic zip bags and then an airtight container.
The dough lasts forever and I usually don't have to make more until the
kidlets have mixed all the colors and it resembles army green. If you decide to make this drop a comment and let me know how it goes.
*On a side note: Thank you to those who left comments and sent emails wishing us well. We are safely home from our sad little road trip. My brother in law, who just retired last year, passed away after a very quick 'bout with cancer. Life can really suck sometimes.
