My four-year-old son absolutely adores play dough. We often buy the shop-bought stuff and sometimes we make a big batch of plain, uncoloured home-made dough. This time, though, I decided to go to town with flavours and colours. It was such fun and he loved it!
Whenever I make play-dough I end up forgetting what I did previously and have to trawl the internet for a recipe – depending on what ingredients I have in the cupboard! This recipe at The Imagination Tree is one of the best I’ve found – although I didn’t use any glycerine. I prefer the recipes that include Cream of Tartar – I’m not sure what it does, but it always seems smoother and softer.
For flavourings I chose orange, lemon, peppermint and almond – and some non-matching food colouring.
I made a batch of plain coloured play dough using the recipe above – or your favourite. You might want to make a double quantity. I only made one, which was plenty for one child. Normally, you’re supposed to add the food colouring while you’re combining the ingredients, but I didn’t this time as I wanted to play with a few different colours.
When you’ve got the play dough to the right consistency (soft, but not sticky), divide in into four pieces (or as many different flavours as you want). Take your first piece and add a blob of food colouring and a few drops of flavouring and work it into the dough with your hands. The extra moisture will make the dough sticky again, so be ready to add some extra flour as you knead it.
I wore latex gloves as I didn’t want to have scary hands for the school run!
Repeat the process for your remaining pieces of dough, using different colours and flavours.
Now have some fun squishing and squashing it! And try not to be too sad when it all gets mixed together and turns brown.
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