As we played with it, it just got stickier. The cooked dough recipe made a soft but firm, workable dough that held its shape well, even when we stored it in a plastic bag. But this one doesn't hold its shape as well.Īt first, the no-cook dough was a little stickier and less cohesive than the cooked dough. In the end, we had a dough ball that strongly resembled the dough we made on the stove. Getting the right balance between flour and water was a little tricky with this recipe, and getting a smooth ball took lots of mixing - a side effect of working without heat. It's more like a dessert than a modeling compound.Ī similar recipe uses honey instead of light corn syrup. Its oiliness doesn't encourage lots of play, but its taste encourages lots of eating. In fact, the main benefit of this recipe is its flavor. On the other hand, it's edible, except by people with peanut allergies or diabetes, and unlike the other recipes, it tastes very good. It's also brown, so you can't really add color. It also requires refrigeration, and the resulting dough is like a stiff, cold log. Even though it appears dry at first, it becomes oily to the touch within a few seconds of kneading. Surprisingly, the peanut butter dough isn't sticky - it's oily. The result is a cohesive ball of peanut butter dough that quickly sets up enough to bog down a mixer.Ī ball of peanut butter modeling compound. The recipe's moist ingredients - the peanut butter and the corn syrup - are also fairly thick. However, the peanut oil found in peanut butter adds a substantial amount of lubrication. In the next section, we'll take a look at an edible Play-Doh recipe. Although all of its ingredients are edible, it does contain a lot of salt. The dough also holds its shape very well, thanks to the cream of tartar's stiffening ability. It's a little stickier to the touch than store-bought Play-Doh compound, but it has about the same softness and can be kneaded easily. This recipe produces dough that's pretty fun to play with. After a while, it becomes a thick, hard-to-stir mass that may stick to some cookware. The cooking step is a little challenging - you need to stir the mixture constantly. The finished product, after a little kneading, is a cohesive ball.įood coloring can add a range of color, although the color isn't as bright as in store-bought modeling compounds. In this recipe, it makes the dough stronger and stiffer. Cream of tartar is a byproduct of wine fermentation, and it's used in cooking to stiffen liquids like egg whites. But one of the most important ingredients in the recipe is cream of tartar, another term for acid potassium tartrate. Like Play-Doh compound, this dough is a mix of starch, water, salt and a lubricant, and it uses heat to help the starch gelatinize. The first recipe we tried used flour, cold water, salt, vegetable oil, and cream of tartar. (We found this recipe at Kids' Turn Central.) We'll learn about several recipes for making homemade Play-Doh in the next section. Manufacturing Play-Doh compound essentially requires mixing all of these ingredients together and placing the mixture into sealable containers. Preservative increases the shelf life, and fragrance and color add the final finishing touches. Hardeners and humectants can make the compound harder or moister if needed. Salt adds some antimicrobial properties and reduces the number of free water molecules. The rest of the Play-Doh ingredients fine-tune the dough and give it its color and fragrance. So, with this combination of ingredients - starch, water, retrogradation inhibitor, surfactant and lubricant - you get a pliable compound that's smooth instead of sticky. In Play-Doh compound, surfactants bind to molecules of lubricant and suspend them in the starch-and-water solution. (With different proportions, water could also become suspended in a fat). In this way, the fat becomes suspended in the water. The hydrophilic end of the molecules will bind to nearby water molecules. If you add a solution of surfactant and water to a fat, the lipophilic ends of the surfactant molecules will bind to fat molecules. In Play-Doh compound, surfactant combines with lubricant to reduce stickiness. The lipophilic end is also referred to as being hydrophobic. The other end is lipophilic - it likes fats. One end of the surfactant molecule is hydrophilic - it likes water. They can do this because of their unique molecular structure. Surfactants are artificially manufactured molecules whose jobs are to suspend substances in water. You can find surfactants - also called surface active agents - in cleaning products in your home. For this reason, Play-Doh includes ingredients to improve its texture and consistency - a lubricant, like mineral oil or vegetable oil, and a surfactant. Extra amylopectin, though, can cause Play-Doh compound to become a sticky paste rather than a smooth gel.
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