Salt Dough Recipe

The very word ‘salt dough’ puts you into deep thinking. After all, what is this salt dough? Do you remember making a huge mess trying to create decorative centerpieces and ornaments while at school? The smooth and soft clay-like material that you loved playing with was nothing but salt dough. Just like we, as kids, truly enjoyed and had great entertainment in indulging in such fun activities, why not make our children enjoy the same? Relive your childhood all over again through your kids’ creativity in making some jewelry items and wall hangings. To add on, preparing salt dough is not at all expensive. Cheap and easy, you can try your hands at salt dough at home. All you need to do is gather all the supplies from your kitchen and begin your thrilling and exciting project of decorating and ornamenting stuff with salt dough.

How To Make Salt Dough

Materials Required

2 cups Flour (any one)
1 cup Table Salt (the grainy kind, not chunky)
1 cup (or more) Water
Foil
Waxed Paper, Butcher’s Wrap, or other nonstick Paper
A Bowl
A Spoon
A Spatula (to lift the ornaments from the paper)
Baking Sheets
Tools to model the dough-like clay

Procedure

Combine salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. Mix to blend evenly.
Gradually pour water and mix to form elastic dough.
The mixing spoon will not do the job. Thus, knead with your hands till you get thick bread-like dough. The longer you knead, the smoother the dough will be.
If the dough is too soft, add some more flour. But, if the dough turns out to be crumbly, some more water would do the trick. And if the dough sticks to your hands, add in more flour and knead well. When prepared right, the dough should not stick to your hands.

Making Ornaments

Roll out a sheet of waxed paper on a flat working surface.
Tear off a piece of dough and roll it out into a large sheet measuring ¼-½ inch in thickness. Follow this for the other dough pieces as well. However, make sure each of them has the same thickness or thinness throughout; else the thicker ones will not finish baking from inside when the thinner ones are done.
Using cookie cutters in different sizes and shapes, cut out various attractive ornaments. Let your imagination run wild by cutting out unusual and extraordinary shapes with a knife.
Decorate your ornaments with plastic eyes, buttons, key ring, lamp pull, plastic flowers, toothpicks, and all sorts of accessories that you find useful.
Cut out a hole in the top of each ornament by inserting the end of a straw. This hole will allow you to hang the ornaments using ribbons or strings.
If you wish to make balls out of the dough or pieces that are thick by design, such as snowmen, crumple foil into a ball and cover the outside with dough. This way, the dough will cook evenly along with other flat pieces in the baking pan.
For attaching different dough parts together, wet slightly and press them together gently.
Place the ornaments on a baking sheet and bake them at 250 degrees F for 2½ hours. Check to see if they are done. If they are hard in the center, then your dough ornaments are ready for decorating. However, if the center is still soft, bake for another 30 minutes.
Remove the baked items and place them on racks for cooling.
Your ornaments are ready to be painted. Color them in different patterns and designs using acrylic paints and glitters.

Wasn’t it easy and fun to learn how to make salt dough? Reveal your inventiveness with beautiful projects, particularly during holidays. The possibilities are endless! Good luck!

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