I found it! I found the best DIY easy homemade playdough you will ever, ever make. And all I had to do was ask my mom. 🙂 After looking for literally a year for a great recipe online, I happened to chat with my mom about wanting to find a nice, soft playdough that my boys could play with. I wanted it to be a recipe that didn’t dry out within minutes but was strong enough to play with day after day. And of course, my mom had just that recipe.
My mom was a preschool teacher for over 12 years when I was little. I should have known she would have the best DIY easy homeade playdough recipe. She told me this was their go-to recipe and that she would literally make vats of it for hundreds of kids to play with over and over. And today I’m sharing this easy recipe with you!
To make this playdough you will need:
all purpose flour
cream of tarter
salt
vegetable oil
water
liquid food coloring (optional)
Mix the flour, salt and cream of tarter together in a large bowl. Set aside.
Mix the water, vegetable oil and food coloring together. You really can’t mix oil and water but I do add the oil to the water in my large liquid measuring cup so that it’s easier to add the dry ingredients. You’ll want a lot of food coloring to get this brilliant color. I think I added about 25 drops. Of course, you don’t even need to add food coloring if you don’t want to. You can simply leave it white.
I wanted to show you the picture above. It shows what the mixture looks like when you add your wet ingredients with your dry ingredients. You’ll want to mix them well and there might be a few lumps. It’s soupy! And you might be thinking, Lynette, this does not look like it’s going to turn into playdough. Don’t worry. I thought the same thing. Trust me.
Put your mixture into a pot and mix over low heat. You will need to stir constantly. I used a spatula to make sure I was scrapping the sides as it mixed. It will take about 8 minutes but before you know it you’ll be mixing the playdough and it will form a tight ball. When it cleans up the sides of the pot, you’ll know it’s done.
Remove it from the heat and continue to stir while it cools for about five minutes or so.
Once it’s cool to the touch, you’re ready to play! The weather has been particularly cold here so playing with warm playdough was a real treat. I actually took the recipe you’ll find below and cut it in half. It made plenty for both of my boys to play with.
Enjoy!
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- 1½ Cups salt
- 3 Cups flour
- 2 TB cream of tarter
- 3 Cups water
- 3 TB vegetable oil
- food coloring (optional)
- Mix flour, salt and cream of tarter in a large bowl.
- Add in water, oil and food coloring. Mix well.
- Put mixture in a pot and cook on low stirring constantly until you get the desired consistency.
- Knead until cool.
- Store in a ziploc bag to keep from drying after after play.
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Wat is cream of tarter is it easily available
Cream of tarter can be found in most grocery stores among the other spices.
I made this for my daughter this afternoon! It came out so well but mixing it on the stove was a workout! Guess i need to step up my gym game hahaha.
Ha! It must be a preschool teacher thing, because I remember making this exact same recipe back when I was student teaching. I had forgotten about it though. Thanks for the reminder!