19. The Ultimate Guide to Playdough

Start with bread

This is the best way to start – and you may never need to go any further. My childhood is full of memories of kneading dough with my grandmother. We’d shape it into buns and biscuits, make seasonal breads and add all kinds of seeds and spices. Being Greek, she’d reach for sesame seeds, green aniseed and nigella seeds. The smell was incredible.I loved making figures and there was a ready supply of cloves to add eyes, noses and buttons. Into the oven it would go and a short while later I’d have my very own bread version of the gingerbread man. A toy and something to eat all in one!There’s no great secret to playing with dough. Roll it out. Use cutters. Make a ball between the palms of your hands.Experiment. See how it changes as you add flour, water and oil. Add yeast. Watch it rise.Put it in the oven. Watch it rise again.Get it out. Leave it to cool. Feel it hot and fresh in your hands. Break it open and see the steam escape. 

Smell it.

Put it to your lips. Kiss it. Eat it. When the experience is so interesting – and practical – why would you ever need to make playdough? The answer, of course, is so that you can store and re-use it. But don’t ever feel that you have to make the perfect dough every time. Much of the fun is in the process. When you eat it, you add yet another layer to the learning. And you can judge your creation. What do you like about it? What would you do differently next time?  Bake it for a second time to make a kind of rusk. It will keep forever. You can even make it into decorations if you use salt-dough.

What ingredients do you need for playdough?

The most basic playdough recipe is just flour and water, or even flour and oil. There are even ways to make it with conditioner (!) and cornstarch but it then becomes dangerous for the under 3s to use in case they eat it.

Salt

This stops the yeasts in the air from fermenting the dough and making it rise. Without salt your playdough will become a bubbly, pungent sourdough starter – a lovely thing in itself, but a project for another day. Adding salt makes your dough keep. As long as you store it in an airtight container it will last for days or even weeks.

Cream of tartar

Cream of tartar makes the dough light, in the way that adding yeast would. But it has the advantage of not turning your dough into a sourdough starter. It’s not strictly necessary, but a lighter, less dense dough is easier for children to manipulate so it’s nice to add if you can find some in your baking cupboard.

Glycerine

Glycerine is an optional extra and gives the dough a nice sheen.

Oil

Adding oil to the dough makes it less sticky. It’s no fun if the dough won’t separate from the biscuit cutters and sticks to your fingers and the rolling pin.

Quantities

I give quantities in the basic recipe below but I urge you to treat this as one big experiment. See what happens when you use too much oil or too little. You may like it, you may not. But you will have learnt something. It’s also the case that the temperature and humidity of the of the room and the way the flour has been stored can affect how much water is needed. And different flours absorb water at different rates. Are you using white, ’00’, gluten-free or wholemeal? Learn to trust your judgement. If the dough doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t. Make a small adjustment – more water, more oil – and see if you can correct it.

Playdough tools

Your hands are the most important tool. Playdough offers a brilliant fine motor workout and gets the fingers ready for perfect pencil grip. But there is certainly a place for other tools. Change the surface with textured rollers and stamps; cut shapes with cutters and plastic knives. 

Readers’ recipes 

Here are some recipes sent in by 100 Toys readers. 

Rose and lavender-scented playdough

I make flower based play dough for my daughter – basic recipe split into two – one I add a drop of purple food colouring and lavender oil and the second I dye pale pink and add rose essence.  I lay it on a tray with dried petals – roses can be dried in a microwave in a few seconds and dried lavender- so it almost looks like an apothecary table – all in different bowls for mixing etc.   All the cutters, texture makers, grapat and her ‘fairies’ come out then – loses the aesthetic somewhat but it’s very pretty to begin with which my daughter loves.  Sarah Lloyd-Wood 

Making patterns with stamps, rollers and natural materials

We use pine cones, shells, dried pasta, leaves, conkers etc to make patterns in the dough and talk about what type of shapes and marks they make. We recently bought the Yellow Door Sensory Stones, which have been a real success. They felt like a bit of an investment, but they have had loads of use already and I like how they make raised patterns as well as indented ones. My daughter loves feelings the patterns they make in the dough, as well as the feel of the stones themselves! They are also good to use with paint too.Emma Sinclair – Schleich animalsWe have a set of farmyard and safari Schleich animals which are played with almost daily. Because they are so life-like, they make great footprints in the playdough which my daughter loves. She likes seeing and talking about the different footprints the various animals make. We also play ‘Guess the animal’ using the dough footprints as a clue.

What’s the difference between playdough and salt dough?

Salt dough is made from just flour, water and salt. It’s less elastic than playdough and dries hard (especially if baked). You can then paint and varnish it and it will keep forever.- Small worldI’ve made green playdough for farmyard small worlds and blue for sea themes. We have a set of small plastic ocean creatures and she loves pressing those into the dough to see the shapes they make. The flat ones – crab, octopus, skate etc work particularly well.

Birthday cakes

Lots of fun with silicone muffin cases, muffin tray, playdough and candles. We also use dried pasta to decorate the ‘cakes’. This is a much loved activity in the lead up to her birthday! We also have some star shaped cookie cutters that get used a lot when making cakes! Emma Sinclair

Loose parts

Playdough and a tray of pasta shapes, cookie cutters, rainbow craft sticks, paper straws, shells – anything really that she can stick into the dough!Emma Sinclair

Play dough should be kept in air tight containers in the fridge. If you find it starts to dry out, just add a little water and knead until it’s supple again.