Yesterday we made our a cool batch of play ice cream. Today we turned the same ingredients into an easy play dough. We have used popular play dough recipes to make a good batch of home made play dough with flour. But it needed cooking or hot water. While the process was faster the kids couldn’t make them independently. The best part about this play dough is that it does NOT need flour and the kids can make this chilled play dough all by themselves simply because there isn’t any cooking or hot water involved and all are ingredients are edible. Not that you should encourage the kids to eat play dough.. Just in case they do and we know they will, moms don’t have to panic . Interested?
Here we go.
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- 3/4 cup of cornstarch
- 1 packet of unflavored gelatin
- 3/4 cup of water
- Kool-Aid/ Food Color
- Oil (optional)
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Dissolve the gelatin in 3/4 cup of water thoroughly. Add food color or Kool-Aid ( if you prefer scent) to the cornstarch.
Mix the gelatin water to the colored cornstarch.
You will get this.
Set the mixture in the fridge for 4-7 hours. I personally love how it turns out in 7 hours.
You should be able to remove the cornstarch-gelatin mixture and set it on a wax paper.
Add a bit of oil if you prefer and knead.
Tada! your chilled play dough is ready. Playing with it was great and the chillness added to the fun sensory element. My preschooler made a batch all by herself and that’s a big accomplishment for little kids.
Notes about the play dough:
Add oil to make it a bit smoother.
Protect your surface with a plastic table-cloth since it may leave a dry stain.. You can easily wipe this off but you don’t want to clean up just cover your surface.
Don’t pull out your play dough too soon or else you will have a sticky mess.
You can store the play dough for at least 2-3 days in the refrigerator.
If the play dough has sat in the fridge overnight set it out 30 minutes before play time for a pliable texture.
Don’t let the play dough sit outside it gets moldy in a day.
Hope you enjoy the chilled edible play dough KIDS can make all by themselves.!
Thanks for reading
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If you want to take play dough beyond sensory play try coloring with play dough.
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This was a bust for me! I followed your recipe exactly (I checked like 3 times after it didn’t work to make sure I hadn’t goofed somewhere!) and 8 hours in I still have a sticky mess– the consistency of mashed potatoes. I’m going to leave it in the fridge a bit longer and see what happens. Thoughts?
I followed the recipe and tried it one more time for you. It seemed to work good. Can you try adding lukewarm water to the gelatin instead of tap cold? Also did you add Kool Aid or food color? Food color works out great very single tin
For how many students does this recipe make?
I tried the recipe using flavored Jello instead of Kool-aid and it didn’t turn out 🙁 It was very runny and goopy. I’ll have to try it again with the correct ingredients.
Oh boo! Yeah the same thing happened to me when I used the Jell-O powder. It got too sticky even when I varied the ratios. But the unflavored gelatin worked!
I am confused because my first instinct is to dissolve the gelatin in HOT water. Did it work out OK using cold? Sounds like a fun way to make play dough. 🙂
Gelatin will dissolve better in hot water- that’s true. It does moderately dissolve in cold water if squish the gelatin a bit. Also the resulting play dough takes 5-7 hours to set.. I’d love for some one else to try it and leave feedback about the dough – good or bad.:)
This looks great! Is there any reason you couldn’t use flavored gelatin instead of unflavored and kool-aid?
Good question. I tried that first but I did not quite get the consistency right. You could always try and if you are successful come back and let us know. Love all the Jell-o scents..