Squishy Homemade Playdough

The Little Girl loves playdough sessions in the afternoons.

 

After purchasing a Playdoh kitchen set with tubs of a few colours, I started experimenting with a few homemade playdough recipes.

 

The best that I have come across so far was published in The Star, Star2 Family Section at page 6 on 25 April 2012.

 

It is really easy to make, cost effective and has the best texture suitable for Playdoh play-sets (neither too soft nor too hard).

 

Skill Level: Easy

 

Time Required: 1 hour 30 minutes (including prep and washing up time)

 

Stuffs You Will Need:

1. Mixing Bowl
 

2. Whisk/Mixing Spoon
 

3. Ziplock Bags
 

4. Cookie/Bento Cutters/Rolling Pin/Tray/Playdoh Play-sets (The limit is your imagination, really!)
 

5. Food Colouring (I use Apple Green, Egg Yellow, Cochineal, Orange, Rose Pink, True Blue and Fortuna Red for variety - and only a small drop for each batch! I also mix colours to get new colours - red with blue equals purple, you get the drift.)
 

6. 1 cup of boiling water
 

7. 1 cup wheat flour
 

8. 1/2 cup salt
 

9. 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
 

10. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

11. 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (for fragrance, omit if you like)

 

Steps:

1. Pour the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

 

2. Add vegetable oil, (vanilla essence), and carefully pour in hot boiling water.

 

3. Whisk the mixture until it clumps like mashed potatoes. Let it cool for about 10 to 15 minutes.

 

4. Remove the slimy dough from the mixing bowl once it is cool enough to be handled. Sprinkle some flour on flat, clean surface and start kneading. Add more sprinkles of flour if necessary. Stop kneading when the dough no longer leaves a sticky residue on your fingers.

 

5. Separate the dough into small, fisy-sized balls. Press a small hole into the middle of a dough ball and add a tiny drop of food colouring. Take care not to add too much food colouring as it will spill out and stain your fingers! To control the amount/ease of dropping the food colouring, measure the liquid using a pipet or short straw. 

 

6. Fold the tinted part of the dough into the ball. Keep folding till the colour spreads evenly.

 

7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 with different food colouring.

 

8. Keep each playdough colour seprately in ziplock bags.

 

Ours keeps for up to a month if sealed properly.

 

We discard used playdough after each play session for hygiene reasons, especially if there has been a playdough playdate.

 

Here is to hours and hours of fun!