The BEST Play Dough Recipe!

Traditional Play Dough

1 cup flour
1 cup warm water
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp oil
1/4 cup salt
food coloring

Mix all ingredients, adding food coloring last. Stir over medium heat until smooth. Remove from pan and knead until blended smooth. Place in plastic bag or airtight container when cooled. Will last for a long time.

This recipe is from here: http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/art/playdoughrecipes/traditional.html



Personal notes:

I used a medium-size pot to make this and it was about the perfect size. When it's done cooking, it will be quite thick and starting to stick to the bottom of the pot. I do not add the food coloring until afterward because I only want to make a small amount of each color at any given time. So I cook it and cool it as above, but I knead the color in by hand during the last step.

I have found that empty used Play-Doh containers make great storage (and we have plenty of them since Play-Doh dries out so quickly!). You could also use small Tupperware-type containers, or even Ziplock-type plastic bags as long as they have a good seal. Check flea markets for old Play-Doh playsets - most of them will be pretty cheap (and will probably include several tubs of dried-out dough if your experience is like mine!).

We left this dough out on the table overnight once by accident and I was VERY pleased to see that it didn't dry out. It got just a little crusty on the top, but a few seconds of kneading with warm hands and it was as good as new!