Play & Craft Dough Recipes     Kool-Aid Playdough Recipe The Very Best Cooked Playdough Recipe Baker's Clay White Bread & Glue Craft Dough Cornstarch & Baking Powder      Modeling Dough Edible Peanut Butter  Play Dough     Baker's Clay 4 cups flour 1 cup salt 1 1/2 cups water   What To Do: Mix ingredients together well, then knead by hand until smooth.  If dough will not hold together, slow add in small amounts of extra water.  Be sure to knead well! Shape dough with hands or roll flat to cut with cookie cutters.  (Cover work surface with baker's parchment paper, wax paper, or non-stick aluminum foil --or just flour lightly.)  Bake items on a cookie sheet for one hour at 350 degrees.   Note that thinner items will bake more quickly than thick items and may need to be removed sooner to prevent burning and cracking.  After cooling, you can paint your ornaments.  We like to use regular markers to decorate as most kids can do fine detail with markers more easily than with a paint brush.  And surprisingly markers do a great job!  We also love using the glitter glue 3-D squeeze bottles add glitz and color. When the paint, ink, and glue is dry, spray a layer of varathane plastic to help preserve your art and to give a shiny appearance.     How To Make Salt Dough Once you stop staring open-mouthed at this odd video you may be comforted that even a guy in a gorilla suit can make salt dough!     Baker's Clay II 4 cups flour 1 cup salt 1 teaspoon powdered alum 1 1/2 cups water   What To Do: Mix everything together by hand or with a large mixer.  A scant amount of extra water can be gradually added if mix is too dry.  Shape, mold, or roll out and cut with cookie cutters.  Bake on un-greased cookie sheet for 30 minutes at 250 degrees.  Flip items and bake for another 90 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool. If you would like to paint the cooled dough, sand lightly before applying.       Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough Ingredients 1 cup peanut butter 1 cup white corn syrup 1 cup powdered sugar (10x sugar) 3 cups powdered milk   What To Do: Use a mixer to combine the powdered sugar,  peanut butter, and corn syrup.  It will thicken as you add the powdered milk, so you will have to knead the final result until it is smooth (either by hand or with a bread dough mixer).   Peanut Butter Dough Play: Let children use this dough much as they would any other play dough, except that the toys they use should be clean and reasonably sterile as this dough is intended to be eaten as part of the play.  This an especially fun dough to roll and shape in the hands Please note that some children are extremely allergic to peanuts and peanut butter.  Childcare and preschool staff are cautioned to double check their children's list of allergy items before introducing this play item into such settings.  Some children with peanut allergies can have life threatening symptoms if they even play in the same room in which peanut products are being used or consumed.     Kool-Aid Play Dough (Borrowed from Milpitas Parents' Preschool)   Ingredients 2 cups of all-purpose flour 1 cup of salt 2 packages of unsweetened Kool-Aid 2 cups of boiling water 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil   What To Do: Mix all the dry ingredients together well. Stir the oil in with the boiling hot water, then pour this mix into the dry mixture. Stir and knead thoroughly. If you have a heavy duty mixer, such as can handle bread dough, you can use that to speed the mixing.   Kool-Aid Dough Play: As soon as the mix is cool enough for little hands to safely touch, give the children some of the dough to help knead -- they love it! The dough is soft and warm, and then eventually cools. Meanwhile, it has a great smell -- of whatever flavor Kool-Aid you added into it. When the dough is cool, get out the rollers and cutters, etc. Store the dough in a Ziploc bag or air-tight container. Some people claim the dough stores longer in the refrigerator. Cold dough would certainly feel nice to play with on a hot summer day!   back         The Very Best Cooked Play Dough Recipe (Borrowed from Mary Sweeney,  Instructor at UCSC Extension and Toddler & Me ) Note: Do not be intimidated about cooking this playdough -- using a non-stick pan makes it a breeze!   Ingredients: 4 cups flour 2 cups salt 8 teaspoons cream of tartar 4 tablespoons cooking oil 4 cups water food coloring (added to water)   What To Do: Mix all ingredients. Cook on medium heat in a Teflon or non-stick skillet.  Use a large pan and do half the mixture at a time.  Trying to do all the dough at once, in one pan, just makes more work -- not less!     (Note: An iron pan may be used, but never aluminum -- as it makes the play dough runny!) Cook, stirring slowly and constantly, until mixture thickens and congeals, or comes together. Keep mashing it around until the mixture is about 90% cooked -- firm, but not hard. (It will happen quickly!)   Remove dough from pan and knead until it is smooth.   Store in plastic bag or tightly covered container. [MARY'S HINT: An electric pancake griddle can also be used, set at 250 degrees.]   Play Dough Play: Get out the usual cutters and rollers and go to it. Another fun way to play with play dough is to make impressions. I love to get out the dinosaurs and zoo animals and have them tromp across the play dough. The kids love to see the different kinds of footprints the different animals can make!     How To Make Playdough     Baking Powder & Cornstarch Craft Dough (Borrowed from www.nationalgeographic.com) Ingredients: 2 cups (470 milliliters) of baking soda 1 cup (240 milliliters) corn starch 1 1/4 cups (300 milliliters) of water 2-quart (1.9-liter) saucepan Wax paper Poster or acrylic paints Colored felt-tip markers   What To Do: 1. Stir the baking soda, cornstarch, and water together in the saucepan. Heat for a few minutes on a medium setting, stirring constantly until the mixture is the thickness of mashed potatoes. 2. Remove the pan from the heat and scrape the mixture onto a piece of wax paper. You’ve made a kind of clay! Allow it to cool for at least ten minutes. 3. With your hands, roll the cool clay into a ball, then flatten the ball on the wax paper. Keep rolling and flattening the clay until it is smooth. 4. Look at pictures of animals to get an idea of their shapes and features. Start with a lump of clay about the size of a robin’s egg. Mold the clay into a simplified animal body shape. 5. Gently pinch out pieces of clay to form the animal’s head, ears, legs, tail, and other features. 6. Allow the animalitos to dry overnight or until they are hard. Then add markings and details with paint and colored markers.   Tips • Make your creations very simple. • Keep unused clay from drying out by sealing it inside a plastic bag and putting it in the refrigerator.     White Bread & Glue Craft Dough Ingredients: 1 to 2 slices of white bread, crusts removed. 1 tablespoon white glue What To Do: Tear up the bread into small pieces and place in a bowl.  Mix the white glue into the bread, mixing with a fork.  The texture should be slightly moist and tacky (i.e. sticky).  If it seems wet and mushy you will need to add a little more bread.   Once you've achieve the desired texture, begin kneading the dough.  Squish and squeeze it and roll it between your palms.  The texture will become more smooth and pliable as you work with it.  Note that this dough will begin to dry out if you work with it too long, so it is best to have some idea of possible projects before you start.  Possible projects include beads for jewelry making (poke holes before it dries all the way), pendants into which you've pressed an image (from a stamping tool, shell, or etc.), Christmas tree ornaments, or small sculptures.  Allow projects to air dry. To give your projects the slightly glossy appearance seen in professionally crafted items, mix equal portions of white glue and water.  Allow to dry.     Want even more fun modeling dough recipes?   Check out these great ideas on the Pudgy Bunny Craft page     Back to...  Make Some Cool Art! Sensory Recipes Material Resources