"This is the BEST play doh in the WORLD!"

Those were the words of my five year old after playing with his first home made "play doh" today.  Then he said, "You should put this in a store!"  They are both playing creatively in their own little worlds now, making "pizzas" and "cookies".

I never knew that I could make a play doh as good (better actually) as the real deal!  It's soft, fluffy, and pliable.  I didn't color mine, but I did scent it with pumpkin pie spice and vanilla though!  They don't seem concerned with colors, their creativity is running wild as it is.  Maybe the scent is bringing out the bakers in them.  And our two year old tried to take a big bite, ha ha ha.  You can color it with food color, or using something like peppermint extract will color and scent it at the same time.

The recipe
1 cup flour (I chose 50/50 garbanzo bean flour and white rice flour)
1/2 cup salt
1 Tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
1 cup water

1. Stir ingredients together well in the pot you will use to cook the dough, but mix well before heating the pan.
2. Over medium heat, cook the dough, stirring constantly until it forms a ball. When it starts to pull away from the sides somewhat  and clump together and most of the wet looking parts look dry, it's ready to remove from the pan.
3. Knead the dough very smooth, but WAIT UNTIL IT COOLS!!  I made this mistake and it sticks to your hands, scalding the skin until you pull it off every finger!!
4. If it's sticky, continue adding flour and kneading until it's less sticky.  It will be less sticky once it's completely cooled off.  I don't know if it was the flour combination I chose or if it was because I mistakenly didn't add enough salt, but it took a LOT of flour to get rid of major stick.
5. Store in an air tight container or zip lock baggie.

I made a double batch, thinking my two boys would need more to play together and it was not necessary so I want to save you the trouble of making the same mistake I did.  One batch is more than enough.

It also was very hard to manage in such a large ball of dough, so I found it easier to break it into palm-sized balls while kneading it, I would just dip it into the flour and knead, repeat, until it was a good consistency. 

Since I just made it today, I don't know how long it will last, but I will report back when it has gotten too hard to play with. 

Enjoy the peace and quiet you get while they play endlessly!

UPDATE - Since the day we made this "play doh" it seems like keeping it in the closed container holds moisture and allows it to get very sticky.  You can probably add more flour and mix it in before playing, but leaving it to air out a bit before playing helps a little too.  I'm not sure, if my blunder of not adding enough salt caused this, since salt would absorb moisture, so carry on and I hope those who have tried it can give me some feedback on whether their recipe lasted after the first day or so.