My youngest has a thing for playdough. She can go through a 4-pack of store bought playdough in about 30 minutes. When she's done making sculptures and play food, the parts that are left are an unappealing gray/brown color that she's no longer interested in. It became an expensive hobby, so I started to make my own.
A couple of months ago a friend of mine told me about no-cook playdough. About how fast and easy it was to make. And it is! Maybe 10 minutes from start to finish.
No-Cook Playdough Recipe
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 2 tbsp cream of tartar
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- gel paste fooding coloring
- 2 cups of boiling water
Mix all the dry ingredients together. Mix the oil into the dry ingredients. Add the boiling water and mix some more. If you're making 2 or 3 colors of playdough from the same batch, split the dough into equal parts and then add the food coloring*. Knead the playdough until the dough is soft, pliable and not sticky. For extra soft and shiny playdough, add a bit of glycerine.
I use gel paste food coloring from the shop -- loads of colors and easy to make it just the shade you want. For this batch, I used turquoise, lemon yellow and electric pink.
* Some recipes add the food coloring with the oil and some add it after the water. If you're making a batch of one color, add the food coloring with the oil otherwise adding it afterwards seems to work just as well.
