Play-Dough: A Recipe for a Lazy Saturday Morning with Young Friends

A few weeks ago, I hung out with my friend Autumn, who also happens to be 8 years old. In planning for this time together, I remembered the best book I ever had as a kid, "The Everything Book", which included tons of activities to keep kids occupied, inspired and creative. In it, I remembered vaguely in my kid-rusty 32 year old brain, was a recipe for home-made play-dough.

I quickly called home to my parents, the intrepid guardians of this wonderful, important piece of their children's history. My Dad found the recipe and recited it to me over the phone. With recipe in hand, Autumn and I set out to recreate this exciting childhood experience.

The Recipe:

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup water
food coloring of your choice
peppermint or other essential oil (a few drops only)

Heat oil in saucepan. Add other ingredients (except peppermint oil and food coloring) to heated oil, water first. Cook 3 minutes stirring constantly. Drop ball of dough onto foil or cutting board to cool. Once it is cool enough to work, split into sections and add food coloring a few drops of essential oil. The dough stinks so even though the essential oil is not necessary, it makes the stuff more pleasant to play with). Commence to play. The dough can be baked into any shapes if desired. It will harden when baked so you can make ornaments, figures, anything and make them permanant by baking them. Or just build little houses and furniture and habitats that you can destroy as soon as you're done, like Autumn and I did.

Play nice.