Homemade play dough

June 14, 9:29 AMVirginia Beach Natural Parenting ExaminerTiffany Bertolacci

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Photo: S. Bertolacci.  Saffron dyed play dough

After deciding it was time for our daughter to experience the fun of play dough we were disappointed to discover that all products we could find were "Made in China."  With the news of the past 2 years filled with multiple stories of poisoned "Made in China" products, we decided to try some homemade recipes.  The recipe I tried was very simple and quick and have described it below.

About.com has multiple recipes, but I chose the one labeled "nature's play dough" and altered it a little bit.  Feel free to follow the aforementioned recipe, but this is what I did and the dough turned out to be a lot of fun to make and use:

• 1 cup of multi-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup of Kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 1 cup of water
• Saffron (or herb of choice for color)
• carrot, spinach or beet juices are recommended by the about.com article
• airtight container(s) to keep the dough from drying out

Mix the first four ingredients together over medium heat in a saucepan.  I would recommend using a wooden or bamboo spoon and avoid using a whisk.  Add water slowly while stirring constantly, allowing it to mix into the dough ball.  If you add the water too slowly, you will have to work harder to incorporate the water into the dough.  Note: you may want to add liquid colors during the cooking process.  After all of the water is absorbed, place the dough ball on a dinner plate (save the wax paper).  After the dough cools to the touch knead the dough until it acquires the "play dough" consistency.  If you are using solid herbs, you will want to fold it into the dough as you knead it.  

Though I have not experimented with other herbs, I would imagine that most would work, save for hot substances such as pepper.  The use of saffron added a different scent and color to the play dough as well as an extra dimension to the fun.  The saffron makes the play dough look different from what most of us played with as children, as there are "hairs" of saffron throughout it.  This was my daughter's first experience with play dough, so she does not yet know any differently.  She loves it!  Also, instead of purchasing a "play dough" play set for her, we gave her a small butter knife, a cookie cutter and other play dough type toys to use with the dough. 

All-in-all the homemade dough gives me piece of mind and was far less expensive!  There seems to be enough salt in the dough to prevent almost anything from "growing" in it.  We made the dough over two weeks ago and no site of anything out-of-sorts to date.  However, you will need to use your own personal judgment to determine how long you want to keep the dough.

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Homemade baby food

Homemade pizza

Other playdough articles