DIY Playdough Recipe

Little A is crazy about playdough right now. Cannot get enough. He asks to play with it several times a day and it keeps him busy for ages.

The set we are using right now is a batch I made a few weeks ago. I had been wanting to make our own play dough for ages and got really inspired by this playdough by Hank & Hunt on Hellobee.

Making your own playdough is super easy – it literally just takes minutes. And it’s nice to know you have a natural end product. The recipe (see below) that we use makes a soft, lovely, pliable dough with fantastic colors and it keeps quite well too in a sealed container.

I highly recommend Americolor gel food colorings – we have the neon ones and the colors are fantastic. Alec especially likes his purple playdough.

Here is the recipe that we use:

DIY PLAYDOUGH

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 tbsp cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• gel food coloring

1. Mix all of your dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
2. Add your wet ingredients and mix well.
3. Divide into as many bowls as you have colors. We made four colors out of this recipe and actually gave away half of the playdough, so you will definitely have enough for 6-8 colors or more. Now add your food coloring. The end color will be pretty much the same as what you see now, so add as much color as you want to get really bright, saturated hues of playdough. Or use less color for soft pastels.
4. Place a small sauce pan your pan on the stove top over medium heat. Start with your lightest color (so you won’t have to clean out the sauce pan between colors). Pour the mixture into the pan and stir continuously until it starts to get chunky. Keep stirring until it forms a big dough ball. 
5. When all the wetness is gone, remove the dough from the pan and leave it to cool. Once cool, knead it a bit until it is soft and smooth.
6. Repeat for each color. I just did yellow first, then green, then blue then purple, without cleaning out the pan in between.
7. Store play dough in an airtight container at room temperature. We’ve been playing with the same batch for a few weeks now.