Perfect Homemade Soft Playdough Recipe
Play Ideas/Things to Do

Perfect Homemade Play Dough Recipe- it’s Crazy Soft!

Look no further for a quick, easy and perfect homemade play dough recipe that is crazy soft! It only takes about 10 minutes from the time you start gathering your ingredients to the time your play dough is done! 

Perfect homemade play dough recipe ingredients includes: flour, salt, cream of tartar, vegetable oil, and food dye (optional).

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup of water
  • 1 cup of flour
  • 1/4 cup of salt
  • 1 Tbsp. of vegetable oil (any kind of oil will do the trick)
  • 2 tsp. of cream of tartar (the secret to soft play dough)

* If you want to dye the play dough different colors you will also need:

  • Food coloring (I used the drops in this recipe but the gel also works wonderfully!)
  • Zip lock bags (one for each color you want to mix)

Instructions:

  1. Put all of your ingredients into a medium sauce pan.
  2. Turn the burner onto a medium-low heat. 
  3. Mix continuously until it starts to harden.
  4. Once it begins to harden, pull the play dough away from the edges of the pan and into the center. 
  5. Once the play dough has balled together in the center, take it out and place it onto a piece of wax paper. 
  6. Allow it to cool for about 10 minutes (or until no longer hot) and then knead the play dough.

*If you find that when kneading the play dough it is a bit tacky feeling, add a tiny bit of flour to your palms and knead it into the dough. Add more flour if appropriate.

Putting the ingredients together in a pot to make the perfect homemade play dough
Place everything in a medium pot and cook on medium/low heat. Stir continuously.
Keep stirring!
The dough will start hardening- pull the dough away from the sides and into the center of pan so it starts to form a ball. Once no longer wet, place the ball on wax paper to cool.

Want to dye your perfect homemade play dough?

Read these instructions:

Color mixing chart displays how to create purple, orange, and green.
Food coloring mixing chart displays how to create yellow green, red violet, and yellow orange.
  1. Separate your cooled play dough into separate balls. (Want 3 different colors? Then make 3 separate balls.)
  2. Take one of your play dough balls and place it into a zip lock bag.
  3. Before closing the bag, add in a few drops of food coloring. (Start with 3 drops and you can always add more dye if you want a bolder/more saturated color.) Gel food coloring also works great too.
  4. Close the bag and knead the dough with your fingers. The dye should start mixing in.
  5. Continue kneading until the dye is evenly mixed with all of the play dough.
  6. Repeat these steps until you have finished mixing all of the colors you wanted to create.
  7. Now go grab some fun play dough mats and play dough tools and have fun!

What are play dough mats? Check them out here!

Put a few drops of dye into the bag and then close it.
Mixing together the dye to create the coloring for the perfect homemade play dough
Knead the bag so that the color starts mixing in.
I chose to add in a few extra drops of blue and yellow to create a richer color.
Perfect homemade play dough

Important Note:

I used Pink Himalayan Sea Salt, vegetable oil and unbleached flour in my recipe. This resulted in a very light tan/cream color base for my play dough. My colors were a little less saturated due to the base color of the play dough being a tan color. I did try it with bleached flour, bleached salt and coconut oil (which is more white in color) and it still resulted in a cream color and not white. However it did come out a bit brighter the second time around. Obviously the brighter/whiter the base color the more saturated/bold your colors will look when you add in the food dye.

Hope you enjoyed this perfect homemade play dough recipe! Share your results in the comments!

Happy making!

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