At my daughter's preschool, parents are required to sign up to bring in certain items for the classroom, one of which is the monthly supply of Play-doh. I signed up for January, which is blue.
What I didn't know is you cannot buy a tub of the store-bought kind, but the school wants you to home-make it by mixing common household ingredients and heating it over the stove. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm guessing it's in case one of the more curious children decide they'd like to eat Play-doh. I'm not sure what the store-bought kind is made of, but the home-made kind is made with all edible ingredients, but I would never recommend that parents pack it in their kids' lunches as a snack. Although, given my recent allergic reactions to food, I have to admit I was mildly curious to try it since it doesn't contain any of my no-no foods. I''m getting desperate here, people!
The school provides the following recipe:
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Ingredients:
- 3 Cups Flour
- 3 Tablespoons Oil
- 1 1/2 Cups Salt
- 2 Tablespoons Cream of Tartar
- 3 Cups Water
- Food Coloring
Mix ingredients over low heat. Once mixture is not sticky to the touch, remove from heat. Allow to cool a few minutes. Knead mixture until soft and pliable. Store in a plastic zip-lock bag or an airtight container.
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Ok, I am not the most domestic person in the world, but I thought I could handle this simple, for-pre-school project. I followed the directions to a T. However, once in the pan and over the stove, the mixture remained very watery. I expected that it would become solid fairly quickly. I wasn't sure if I should continue to stir it over the stove or let it sit. Nothing was happening and I was growing impatient very quickly, so I turned the heat up from Low to Middle and left the mixture on the stove quite a bit longer than I had anticipated it would take. The mixture started to bubble in big, scary blobs. I was very afraid that it might suddenly explode and leave a royal blue glob on our porcelain white ceiling, so I removed it from the stove. It still appeared liquified to me. After poking it with a spoon, I discovered that there was just a thin layer of liquid on the top, and the lower half seemed to be solid. Because I didn't want to be mistakened for a Smurf the next day at work, I put on a pair of plastic gloves so that I could grab and knead pieces of the mixture. Well, I had apparently left the mixture on the stove too long because I soon discovered burnt blue Play-doh stuck to the bottom of the pan. Leave it to me to burn Play-doh!!!
Luckily, I could salvage enough of the middle, unburned, non-liquified portion of the Play-doh for my daughter to bring to school. It was not pretty. It smelled awful. But it was still pliable. Gimme a break already, I'm trying.
4 comments:
Yep I totally screwed mine up too when I made it for my son's class so I'll never make it again. Store bought works for me.
Very amusing. It was nice to get caught up on my reading for this new year. But I challenge you--no, double-dog dare you--to write about work sometime. You can disguise it. What do you do in your job that is the equivalent of burning play-doh?
-- Guy on the sixth floor
I rarely will turn down a dare, so I'll see what I can do.
Maybe now that you've tried your hand at play-doh you can attempt that grilled hampster.
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