Play Dough
Kathryn April 23rd, 2011
Joshua is at an age now where he can ‘help’ me with many of my daily activities. He helps me fill up the washing basket, type emails, take photos, put his toys away, put his dishes in the sink, put the rubbish (and sometimes the ‘not rubbish’) in the bin. He’s starting to become my little shadow and helper and I generally just love having him with me. I love seeing him explore and enjoy life, and one of his favourite things to help me with is cooking!
It’s wonderful! Now I can use baking as an activity that Joshua and I can do together and hopefully, with some delicious results! Josh and I have a great time as I try not to care too much about the mess he makes as he help me ‘mix’ the ingredients… or that he uses my measuring spoons to scoop out spoonfuls of batter which he then proceeds to eat….
I had been thinking for a while about making playdough with my sister and her 2 yr old girl and so a few weeks ago we went over to their place to do just that! The recipe is so quick simple, and you can find it on the side of a Cream of Tartar container …. I’ve also given it to you here!
1 cup of salt
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of water
2 Tbsp of oil
4 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
Food colouring
Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until mixture congeals.
Getting everything ready before you start really helps!
When we made it we halved the above quantities and made it in 4 different colours. Keep in it an airtight bag/container in the fridge and it should last for 6 or so months. I found you need a reasonable amount of food colouring if you want bright colours like I did. Just a few drops will give you quite a pale colour so it’s best to get the ‘bottles’ of food colouring as opposed to the little dropper packs.
Pouring in the flour!
It always impresses me how much the kids just love to be involved and help. I will measure out the ingredients and then let Josh pour them into the bowl/saucepan… it’s so simple and yet he loves to be helping me. Also another note… I discovered that the Cream of Tartar containers hold about 6 Tbsp… because I only had 1 container and I wanted to make 4 colours (which would have required 8 Tbsp) I just reduced the amount of Cream of Tartar in each batch…
And more flour!
And mixing it all together!
We had lots of fun making playdough, although it did get a bit tricky when both kids were wanting to help and there wasn’t enough room!
Mummy's job was mixing it on the hot plate.
The final product! Nice and bright...
It was good fun and I’m sure that most kids would love knowing that they’re playing with playdough that they have helped make! All you need then is some cheap cookie cutters and a rolling pin and you’re set for all your playdough fun!
I loved playing with play doh with my kids when they were little. It is so therapeutic !