Homemade play-dough

Yesterday we retired a big plastic back of jumbled up, slightly dried out store bought play-dough that had begun to look like a bag of multicolored peas – and made some new from scratch.
We used this recipe from Super Baby Food, a book I’ve been referring to occasionally as I make some of Owen’s baby food from scratch (more on that later).

Ingredients:
2+ cups white flour
½ cup salt
1 cup hot tap water
1 teaspoon cooking oil

In large bowl, mix flour and salt. Slowly mix in water and oil while stirring, then knead in the bowl. You may have to add extra flour (up to a ½ cup or more) until the stickiness disappears. Divide into three balls.

To color the dough poke a deep hole with your finger into the top of the dough ball and place color in. We used washable tempera paint in red, yellow and blue (1/2 teaspoon or so per ball) but food coloring is another option. Knead color into dough.

To store, put each color in a fold-top sandwich bag and then place the bags together in a Ziplock.

It was so simple that Will did most of the work preparing it and then played for well over an hour with his new, wonderfully pliable dough. Building snowmen, cooking pancakes, making footprints in the dough. And on and on.