Miss Louise's Playdough

 

During the schoolyear I take our boys to a free preschool program called StrongStart. Our local StrongStart is run by a lovely lady named Miss Louise. There are always lots of great crafts and activities to do at Miss Louise's. And there's always a playdough table with homemade dough made by Miss Louise. Here's her recipe. It takes less than 10 minutes to make so it's easy to fit it in during nap time or after bed. Older kids could probably help stir the flour and pour, but mommy will have to do the stove part.

• 2 cups flour

• 3.5 tsp cream of tartar

• 2 cups water

• 1 cup fine salt (if your is not fine, whiz it in your blender first)

• 2 Tbsp oil

• food colouring

• glitter (optional)

Sift flour and cream of tartar together. In a large, heavy pot mix together water, salt, food colouring and oil. Heat gently over medium heat. Stir in flour and keep stirring until it is well blended and a large soft ball forms. Remove from heat. Turn dough out on to counter and allow it to cool for a minute or two. knead by hand or with your stand mixer until you have a smooth dough. Store in an airtight container or ziplock when completely cool.

Alternate Instructions: If you have a fairly big stand mixer you can add all the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and the pour the liquid ingredients in after heating them in the microwave or on thw stove (or using boiling water from the kettle). Use the paddle attachment if you're going to try this.

Comments

[Jen]

So how does it taste? When I was a kid my Mom made playdough for us and it was salty. Once I start making it for Kieran and Iris I'm sure they'll be putting it in their mouths too. They still have this habit - yesterday we had to come inside because Mommy told them if they put another rock in their mouths this is what would happen...

[Lyn Stanley-Maddocks]

Silas actually CHEWS the rocks. It makes this gross crunching noise and I am terrified he'll crack a tooth, besides which, it's gross.

Yep this stuff is very salty. Yuck.

[kayenne]

oooooohhh... my 3 year old niece loves playdough! thank god she never picked up the habit of shoving anything in her mouth though. one less thing to worry about - although she does tend to lick or bite us in place of a kiss.

what does the salt do? i suppose using sugar would make it an ant haven. lol how long does this last? and how about adding food color after the dough is made?

[Lyn Stanley-Maddocks]

I think the salt is there as a preservative. Even bacteria and mold won't eat somethign taht salty! You could add food colour after, just be prepared to do a lot of kneading.

[kayenne]

thanks!