Make Playdough

Make Playdough using this recipe and common ingredients you probably already have on hand. I got this recipe from my daughter's preschool play group. It is seriously the best playdough recipes ever. I LOVE it! It is very easy to make with minimal mess. It lasts forever and makes a ton. One batch lasts me months.

The Playdough Recipe

• 3 cups flour

• 1 1/2 cups salt

• 4 tablespoons oil

• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar

• 3 cups water

• food coloring

Directions

Mix all of the ingredients well and cook over low to medium heat. Cook the mixture until it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. It will look kind of lumpy and goopy. You may think it is not done yet by looking at it, but it is.

Remove the playdough from the pan and place on a floured surface (about 1/2 cup flour) and knead the playdough until all of the flour is worked in. Done! You can keep the dough in a zip lock bag or tupperware container. One recipe makes enough to last for quite a while!
Whenever I make playdough I lay down a big plastic tablecloth for kneading the dough, and for my kids to play with it on. I actually bought it at Joann's fabric. It is basically just 2 1/2 yards of vinyl. It happened to have a winnie the pooh theme so I assume it was for table cloths. It worls great as a surface to flour and knead dough and also to protect the table while my kids play with dough or paint or anything messy.

Make Playdough In Different Colors

This recipe calls for adding the food coloring before cooking so you will be making one very large batch of one single color. Frankly, I'm fine with that since it is intended to be played with by babies. I don't think they need multiple colors. They will just mix it all up and ruin it anyway. But if you happen to use this playdough recipe for an older child then you might want different colors. I would suggest breaking the recipe in half or even quarters and making different colors. I've heard tell of people making the recipe without the food coloring and then adding at the end as well. IN this case you can divide the dough and add the food coloring in different colors.

Playdough fun!

To get my kids really having fun with playdough I break out the cookie cutters and rolling pins. I give the baby his baby forks, spoons, and knife to play with it, and my two year old uses a playdoh fun factory I got at the craft store. You can even buy cute little play sets for clay and dough that come with different shaped presses and little plastic pizza cutting wheels and rolling pins.