This Jello playdough recipe is another great craft project you can do with your kids to make a toy you can produce time and time again. Jello ads scent and color to your homemade playdough making it one of the most fun and interesting ways to make your own. It is fairly complicated to make compared to some other playdough recipes and it is definitely not for kids to be doing on their own as their is come careful cooking involved. Although this is not a recipe for kids to make you can quite easily make it with them as a craft or toy project. It makes a pretty nice playdough if you can get the cooking just right, with a really nice texture and shape.
Jello Playdough Recipe
Ingredients for this Jello playdough recipe:
- white flour – 1 cup
- salt – 2 tbsp
- cream of tartar – 2 tbsp
- cooking oil – 2 tbsp
- warm water – 1 cup
- Jello – 1 3oz pack
Directions for this Jello playdough recipe:
- Add all the ingredients together in a big mixing bowl
- Mix all the ingredients together until consistent
- Pour into a pan and stir continuously
- Wait for it to thicken into a big ball and then place it on a piece of wax paper to cool
- Kneed it for a few minutes once cooled with some flour
- Add any food coloring or glitter to spice things up!
- Start playing!
This is one of the most fun you can make so make sure to give it a try once you’ve mastered some simpler recipes! Be careful because Jello Playdough burns easily, so make sure you cook it on low heat and keep stirring. If you store it in an air tight refrigerated container you can keep it for quite a few days.
I just made the playdoh using regular lime jello. I cooked it on low medium for about 5 minutes. You will know when it is ready because it turns into a big ball. Cannot wait for it cool down.
I tried this and it was a flop. Nowhere in the instructions does it say to cook anything. It just says to mix everything together in a bowl and stir continuously. Is it supposed to be cooked?
When cooking this–or any–playdough, use a medium to large frying pan with a non-stick surface. Stirring and clean-up are very, very easy. The larger cooking surface allows faster cooking and easier flipping of the dough. Electric fry pans work well…if they are non-stick. I have made playdough for years for Head Start children, and am always looking for the easiest and least messy approach. I also reduce the amount of salt in most of the recipes, too much salt=dry and crusty little fingers.
Hey, if it’s really a huge issue on whether to use cooking oil or baby oil, why not substitute another skin-healthy and edible oil? Olive oil is good for skin and so is coconut oil. It may be a little bit more expensive but it’s not like a lot of oil is used to make this. I actually use coconut oil as a lotion and it has cleared up a lot of my skin problems! Not to mention that it is 100% edible; some people even use it as a butter substitute.
This is a really great for sensory play, I am excited to try this. fI am going to see how it works with coconut oil. That would certainly be great for the skin and safe to be ingested. I just know what will work for me and I would only use food safe ingredients.
Can you make this with unflavored/colorless gelatin and add color later? That’s all I got on the shelf!
Re: UK Jello question – If it’s like Australia, you’d be looking for jelly (gelatin). Jello is a eponym, a name brand that has become the common usage name.
What is jello?
Sounds fun! People with the kids that have oral issues and gluten issues-really? You have to be on this sight and slam the messenger? Someone is just trying to share a fun recipe. If your kids can’t do it and not eat it-just don’t do it! Jeez- it is not rocket science
Just stopping by to let you know that I’ve featured your craft on Family Fun Crafts! You can see it here:
http://funfamilycrafts.com/jello-playdough/
If you have other kid friendly crafts, I’d love it if you would submit them.
If you would like to display a
featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above.
Wouldn’t using kool-aid be an issue? There’s no gelatin in it. Perhaps you could use an equivalent amount of powdered gelatin and the unsweetened kool-aid for color and scent. It would probably taste nasty, too (bonus if they decide to eat it, even though it would be perfectly safe!)
Cool recipe. Looks fun
I really wanted to love this recipe because it’s low salt and I hate the dry feeling of salt on my hands when playing with playdough, but this recipe just didn’t work for me. I don’t know if it was weather conditions or what but I needed almost double the amount of flour! (I stirred constantly over low heat for 20 minutes without it thickening.) Anyone else have this issue?
Instead of baby oil, if you must substitute… use coconut oil – its fab for the skin and it is ingestible.
I made this just today. I didnt like it. I dont think it holds together for very long. I personaly think it could use more salt but thats just me.if you want playdough for a day then this is for you.
Great recipe! In case you are like me and struggle to understand recipes (can’t explain why, I am pretty smart!)… pour into pan and cook on stove top for almost 10 min at medium heat stirring constantly. When the mixture could stand in the middle of the pot without dispersing to the sides I then put it onto wax paper to cool. For me it didn’t make a ball, just thickened and became cohesive. When kneading I added food coloring to brighten up since flour dulled the color a little.
Thanks for all the comments.
I love this jello! I linked to you here: http://koskersidlewild.blogspot.com/2012/03/leprechaun-playdough.html
could i use rice flour instead of wheat flour???
as much as i enjoyed making this , the cooking at a low temp. should be in the instructions that way i could have found out before hand when i read the instructions that it would burn so quickly at medium heat.
Has anyone tried this with rice flour so that it’s gluten free?
You don’t actually have to cook this. Spin all the dry ingredients in the food processor. Mix the liquid ingredients. Then heat the liquid until just beginning to boil. Pour the hot liquid slowly through the feed tube of the food processor. When it rolls itself into a big ball, take it out, let it cool. That’s it. Good luck.
Just made this and I LOVE it! I did end up adding almost a cup extra flour to reduce the stickiness once it was cooled. So much smoother than the regular super-salty stuff. And after playing with my girls for about a half an hour, my hands still feel soft and not crusty and dry. This recipe is a winner!
Just wanted you to know, this worked great for me as is. Thank you for sharing!