Make your own yummy scented playdough in three gorgeous ice-cream flavours, without any artificial colours or flavours. Use cocoa powder, vanilla and REAL strawberries for safe and natural sensory play.
I love playdough, and always prefer homemade to store bought as it is way cheaper and lasts so much longer.
With a tiny bit of experimenting we made strawberry, chocolate and vanilla flavored playdough. No artificial colouring or flavours required and it makes me happy to know we aren't playing with chemically scented dough.
Of course I just had to share these recipes and it's so much fun playing ice cream shops with these three classic flavoured ice-cream playdoughs.
These are fabulous for school holiday fun, party favours or gifts (the chocolate flavour will be a lot of fun at Easter!). These can also be used to make play cakes and desserts that look and smell amazing.
I was even served up an ice-cream cookie sandwich at our little play cafe and absolutely loved seeing all the imaginative creations dished up.
To make these, I used a half quantity of this easy no cook playdough recipe (you will need plain flour, cream of tartar, oil and salt)
ALWAYS ALLOW THE PLAYDOUGH TO COOL FOR 5-10 MINUTES BEFORE GIVING TO LITTLE HANDS
Real Organic Strawberry Playdough
1/2 Cup of Plain Flour
1/4 Cup of Salt
1 tbsps. of Cream of Tartar
1/2 tbsp. of Cooking oil
4-5 Strawberries
A Dash of water
>Measure all the playdough ingredients (except the strawberries and water) and add to a mixing bowl.
>Remove the green leaves from the strawberries and blitz them in a blender - add a dash of water to help it blend.
>Heat on the stove until boiling, then measure half a cup and add to the playdough ingredients. Mine made a perfect half cup measure, but if it is under, top up with boiling water.
>Mix well and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. If you have any lumps of strawberry remaining then pick them out with a bread knife.
This one is probably not going to last as long as the others due to the fruit content, and although it is salted, it's best kept in the fridge when not in play.
Fair-trade Chocolate Ice-cream Playdough
1/2 Cup of Plain Flour
1/4 Cup of Salt
1 tbsps. of Cream of Tartar
1/2 tbsp. of Cooking oil
1/2 Cup of Boiling Water
1/4 cup cocoa powder
>Add everything except water to the mixing bowl.
>Boil the kettle and add half a cup of water and stir well until it forms a ball of playdough.
Keep this one well away from dogs and ensure kids know not to eat it, despite how delicious it smells it is full of salt and not very tasty.
It looks like rich chocolate cake and is so much fun to mix up.
Very Vanilla Bean Playdough
1/2 Cup of Plain Flour
1/4 Cup of Salt
1 tbsps. of Cream of Tartar
1/2 tbsp. of Cooking oil
1/2 Cup of Boiling Water
1 1/2 teaspoons of natural vanilla essence
>Add everything except water to the mixing bowl.
>Boil the kettle and add half a cup of water and stir well until it forms a ball of playdough.
You can find Fair-trade vanilla bean essence in glass bottles, which are of course reusable. When we run out, I'll be reusing the bottles to do homemade vanilla essence, but in the meantime, proper store bought vanilla essence (not imitation) will do a marvellous job at recreating play vanilla ice-cream.
You can even see the vanilla bean fragments in this dough!
It probably took about 10 minutes to make all three of these with help from little miss 6. And 5 minutes to clean up as I used the same mixing bowl, measuring jugs and spoons for each batch, just rinse inbetween so you don't spoil the colours. It is very simple and low waste and there was a lot of interest in the flavours and aromas.
Keep these well away from pets and please be sure to check for any allergies first especially if doing this for a play date. Little kids sometimes like to eat playdough, it won't harm them but it's not exactly a food and therefore best played with only.
We made these after dinner and they were literally snatched away from me as I tried to take a picture!
My plan is to mix up a chai latte or cappuccino flavour just for me. I find playdough seriously relaxing, and what better way to enjoy playing with the kids than to have more adult flavours to work with while I enjoy a real coffee!
I hope you try this out and have as much fun as we are having with this!