Strawberry Playdough Recipe

Summer is arriving and so are strawberries picked straight from the garden. This sweet-smelling strawberry playdough recipe will have you craving those delicious little berries.

So make sure you have a few on hand, because your kiddos will be asking for them once this homemade playdough gets into their little hands. I know mine were!

When you’re done with some strawberry fun, take the playdough and have a blast with our playdough mats in our shop!

Ingredients

To make our homemade strawberry playdough recipe, we first gathered a few ingredients:

3 cups of flour
3/4 cups of salt
6 tablespoons of cream of tartar
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 bottle of Strawberry McCormick’s Baking Flavors
Red Food Coloring {about one whole small bottle}
3 cups of water

Making the Dough

Then, my kiddos measured all the ingredients into a pot, whisked it until smooth, then passed it to me to cook for a few minutes over low heat.

The key to making this playdough soft and squishy is to stir it constantly while cooking and to remove the pot from the heat before the dough looks completely cooked. I turn off the heat when the playdough still has a few pretty sticky spots. As the dough cools for a few minutes in the pot, the sticky spots will disappear.

Once cool, you can turn the playdough out on a counter and knead it until smooth. If the dough isn’t red enough, you can add more food coloring while kneading it.

Strawberry Playdough Playtime

Once my 3 and 5 year-old smelled the dough and saw the stems I had made for them the night before, they couldn’t wait to play. They both wanted to fill their baskets with fresh juicy berries, so I showed them how to roll a smooth ball. This was a challenge for both of them and great practice and controlling those hand muscles. This strawberry playdough recipe was more than yummy – it was a bit of good and hard work for the kiddos!

When they had a ball, I showed them how to make the strawberry pointy by rolling but squeezing the ball more on one side that the other. Even more of a challenge but they kept trying, happily adding a stem when they were done.

Then, it was off to the bakery to chop up the berries for tarts.