Wednesday, December 19, 2012

25 Posts of Christmas...Gingerbread Playdough

I have been excited about this one! Since we made Pumpkin Pie Playdough in October, I really wanted to make Gingerbread Playdough for the kids in James' class at Christmas. Today was the day!

Last night I followed the directions that I found over at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  It turned out GREAT! A few things that I learned along the way - don't triple the recipe. Ha! I did and it just took forever to cook all the way through. Also, ANY spices will work - whatever you like - AND use those spices that are in need of being replaced. They still smell somewhat so just use those up instead of buying new.

I packaged ours in small mason jars, tied a ribbon on there, and slapped a "Merry Christmas! Love, James" sticker to the top. Voila! It probably took me a grand total of an hour start to finish (and that may have included putting boys to bed while it cooled!).

I am all about cheap, store-bought playdough, but I'm even MORE about giving gifts that aren't edible at Christmas. I love goodies, but that's a problem! Ha! I figured the parents of James' classmates might agree.


Ingredients
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 2 tsp. cream of tartar
  • 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp. ground ginger
  • 1 tsp. ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp. ground cloves
  • 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tsp orange extract {optional} - I left this out.
Instructions
In a medium saucepan whisk together dry ingredients. Next mix in the water, oil, and orange extract and stir until a thick batter is formed. Cook the mixture over low/medium heat until a thick dough forms. Turn out onto parchment paper and knead until smooth. Makes about 2 cups of dough.

As a sidenote, I didn't even THINK about not using nutmeg for James until it was already mixed in. I looked it up and nutmeg is the pit of a fruit. It's supposed to be ok. I have an extra and I do think I'm going to let him play with it (he's eaten it in pumpkin muffins and it's in pumpkin spice which we used in the pumpkin pie playdough). However, next time I might bump up the cinnamon, cloves, or ginger instead!

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