Christmas Playdough Recipe & Ideas
An easy Christmas playdough recipe with peppermint and vanilla. Add red & green food coloring and use it for playdough Christmas cookies and candy canes.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 1 batch 1x
- Category: Play
- Method: Cook
- Cuisine: N/A
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Playdough Base
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup salt
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup water
Scents and Colors
- about 30 drops of food coloring per batch*
- 1 tablespoon of pure peppermint extract or pure vanilla extract*
Instructions
- Add the all-purpose flour, salt, cream of tartar, oil, and water to a small saucepan. Stir it together to form a runny paste.
- Cook over medium-low heat, stirring until the dough forms a ball.
- Remove from heat and dump the dough onto a cutting board.
- Allow it to rest for about 10 minutes until cool enough to handle.
- Make a dent in the dough and add the pure extract and food coloring. Make a well into the dough and add the food coloring and extract. Knead it to mix everything in. It will be sticky at first. Don’t panic! It will be smooth once it’s mixed up. See notes for instructions to mix and match the scents and colors.
Notes
- Refrigerate in an airtight container for a couple of months.
- The food coloring will stain your hands when you add it. You can wear gloves to prevent this! Once it’s incorporated into the playdough, it will no longer stain.
Mix and Match Scents and Colors: Each batch of playdough will need 1 tablespoon of vanilla or peppermint extract and about 30 drops of food coloring. Higher-quality food coloring will result in more intense colors. For this batch, I chose to divide the dough into thirds. So, each 1/3 of the dough got 1 teaspoon of extract and 10 drops of food coloring. I left one white and added peppermint extract to make candy canes.