These homemade Christmas playdough recipes are perfect for the holidays! They’ll have little bakers whipping up batch after batch of delicious smelling treats.
Chocolate, candy cane, sugar cookie, orange clove, and egg nog dough – they all smell so real, even I was tempted to take a nibble! To add to the fun, check out our Playdough Mats in our shop!
In most of these homemade Christmas playdough recipes, we simply added extracts and spices to this wonderfully smooth and squishy One Pot Playdough Recipe, so it was easy to quickly create a variety of different scents.
For each batch, we added all of these ingredients to a pot, mixed until all of the lumps were gone and then cooked it over low heat, stirring often.
The playdough started to thicken and pull away from the sides. Â I turned off the heat once the dough thickened but was still a little sticky, and allowed it to cool in the pot.
Once it was cool, the stickiness disappeared and the dough could be kneaded before being handed off to my two very eager bakers.
NOTE: The recipes below make enough dough for 2 children to play.
Sugar Cookie Playdough
1 1/2 cups of flour
6 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon maple extract
1 1/2 cups of water
Egg Nog Playdough
1 1/2 Â cups of flour
6 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons rum extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
a drop or two of yellow food color
1 1/2 cups water
Orange Clove Playdough
1 1/2 Â cups of flour
6 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1-2 teaspoons of orange extract or several drops of orange essential oil
1/2 teaspoon cloves
orange food coloring
1 1/2 cups of water
Chocolate Playdough
1 1/4 cups of flour
1/4 cups of cocoa powder {unsweetened}
6 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups of water
Candy Cane Playdough
1 1/2 Â cups of flour
6 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1-2 teaspoons of peppermint extract
1 1/2 cups water
red food color
For the candy cane dough add all the ingredients except the food color to a pot and cook on low until the dough thickens. Â Once the dough is cool remove half , Â add several drops of red food coloring, and knead until uniformly colored. Â For a vibrant red, gel food dye works better than liquid color.
Both my 2.5 and 5 year olds played with the dough nearly non-stop for a week.  We were cookie making, cupcake decorating, candy cane rolling machines and the house smelled delicious!
Find More
Did you know that you can use playdough for LEARNING?! Yep, it’s true!
Snag our hands-on, playful batch of math and literacy playdough mats in our shop!
I don’t find cream of tartat where I live. Is there an alternative, or could it be left out altogether?