My attempts at making some play dough for church camp Sunday school.

Found many non-cook recipes and thought I’ll share the ones I tried.

2 cups flour

2 cups boiling water

1 cup salt

4 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons cooking oil

Colouring (I used Red)

Flavouring essence (I used Strawberry)

Mix everything together in a bowl and once the  mixture is slightly cooled, start kneading the play dough until everything is mixed evenly.

I love this recipe as there is no cooking involve (just boiling water) and the play dough comes out  incredibly soft and pliable, pretty much like the real thing (Play-Doh).

Then divided it into two and mixed some yellow food colouring into  one of them, and voila!  We have orange.

The second recipe is exactly like the first one except that I had to substitute the cream of tartar as I had run out.

So here it is.

2 cups flour

2 cups boiling water

1 cup salt

8 tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons cooking oil

Colouring (Blue + Yellow = Green)

Flavouring (lime juice from above)

Apparently cream of tartar is a weak acid and so can be substituted for either vinegar or lemon juice (which I had neither, so used lime juice instead).

So the substitution is for every 1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar, 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar is needed.

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup water

1 teaspoon oil

Colouring (I used yellow)

Flavouring(I  used coconut)

Mix everything in a bowl and start kneading until well combine.  This recipe is without cream of tartar since I had run out by this stage.  It’s not a bad recipe (since some of us may not not have cream of tartar as a staple in our pantry), still soft and pliable but a tad on the moist side as shown on my hand.  No problem, just add a bit more flour until it’s not so sticky.

1 cup cold water

1 cup salt

2 teaspoons cooking oil

Colouring (Blue, yeah I know it looks aqua here)

3 cups flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch/cornflour

Mix water, salt, oil, and colouring in a bowl, then add flour and cornstarch until the mixture reaches the consistency of bread dough.  I ran out of very fine cooking salt and just used the normal stuff in this recipe.  I think the larger salt grains  made the mixture not as smooth and dries out very quickly.

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup salt

1/2 tablespoon cream of tartar

1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 cup boiling water

Mix all the ingredients together, stirring quickly to mix well.  When cool, knead with your hands.

See the salt grains?  I’m pretty sure this is why the mixture is drier than recipe 1, 2 and 3.  Anyway, this mixture smells so divine, but not edible (too salty), so next time, I’m going to be trying this recipe for a truly edible chocolate playdough.


So what are you waiting for?  Go make the play dough with your little ones, I’m sure they’ll thank you for it.