In Home Entertainment: Nutella Playdough

In our ongoing quest to discover creative playdough recipes (and, more realistically, in mom's continuing attempts not to eat entire jars of nutella), we decided to whip up a batch of nutella playdough. We found a few on the web, but decided to adapt this one from Dana Made It -- we found that we needed to add a full cup more water to get a dough consistency and a healthy dose of baby oil to keep it elastic. Here's the dealio:

Ingredients:
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup of powdered cocoa
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1/2 tablespoon cream of tartar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons nutella
- 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 cups water
- baby oil

Directions:
Boil the water in a small sauce pan. In a medium sized pan, mix the flour, cocoa powder, salt and cream of tartar. Add the boiling water, oil, and nutella to the mix and stir on medium-low heat until it is thick. Cool completely before kneading the dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it no longer sticks to your hands and then mix in a few drops of baby oil.

It actually turned out very similar to the chocolate playdough we've made before and, next time, I think we'll just add in some nutella to that recipe -- it really adds a nice smell and texture to it.

I spent a long time diligently making "cookies for Santa" and wanted to leave them out on a sheet to dry. After a lot of negotiating with mom (who generally lets me do what I want in the arts and crafts realm, but having had just made a whole batch of new nutella playdough, wasn't super into drying the whole thing out), I decided to keep them as cookies, but store them in an airtight container. Cami, as usual, actually ate the "cookies." Well, only a few bites.

lookin a little crumbly. 

mmmm, smells delish.

All That Chocolate on My Tongue: Valentine's Chocolate Playdough

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  We wanted to make a sweet treat for our buddies this V-Day, but knew there would be enough sugar flying about and we wanted to go in a little different direction.  And given our love of playdough, we were really psyched when we spotted this idea.  We made a test batch using our favorite playdough recipe -- we just added about 3/4 cup of cocoa to it.  We found that while it smelled delish, it turned a little tough after a few weeks.  So we lightened up on the cocoa powder and ended up with this:

- 4 cups water
- 4 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 4 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1/3 cup of cocoa powder

Combine all ingredients in large pot.  Stir constantly over medium heat until most of the moisture is absorbed (it will take a bit).  Let cool and fold in a bit of baby oil and some heart confetti.   Looks and smells good enough to eat - and we had a ball playing with our pastry cutters.


Mom put a small batch in a little red food storage container from IKEA, put one of our stained glass valentines on top, and tied it all up with a little bit of baker's twine (can you tell baker's twine is mom's new obsession?)