Kool-Aid Dough

The other day our Firefighter was on shift and even though we missed him we were busy with things to do around the house and errands to finish.  After dinner I was cleaning up the kitchen and the boys were having some quiet time and watching a video.  It was getting closer to the start of our bedtime routine so I wanted to keep things a bit more low key.  By the end of the day when my Firefighter is on shift this mommy is usually pretty tired.  I decided that it was still too early in the evening to just sit around and watch television but yet I did not want the boys to get too wound up.  Then it hit me...Kool-Aid dough.

My little firefighters love to play with Kool-Aid dough.  I received a copy of the recipe for the play dough  last year from G's preschool teacher.  She uses it in her classroom so some of the moms take turns making it for the class when the older play dough starts to dry out a bit.  I followed her recipe and loved the play dough.  It has a light and airy feel to it and is very soft.  It smells good too from the Kool-Aid!  I also like that it really does not have that gritty feel to it like some other playdough recipes that I have tried.  The recipe uses standard ingredients that I usually keep in my pantry except for one and that is Alum.  The preschool teacher gave the moms some Alum so we did not have to buy it but I decided to make some for the boys to have at home so I went out to look for the Alum.  I was not able to find it at the superstores that sell merchandise and groceries but I was able to find it at the larger grocery store chains.  The bottle that I bought was made by McCormick.  I made two batches of the Kool-Aid dough and I ended up using about one-half of the bottle of Alum.  I believe that I could get about four batches of play dough out of one bottle of Alum.  Once you have all of the ingredients the recipe is very easy to follow.  Here is the recipe:

Kool-Aid dough

Ingredients:
2 1/2 - 3 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid
1 tablespoon alum
2 cups boiling water
3 tablespoons corn oil
1 cup additional flour

Preparation:
Mix the first six ingredients into a dough.  After the dough cools, knead it - adding small amounts of additional flour as necessary - until it reaches the desired consistency.  Store the dough in an airtight container.

Here are some things that I learned while following this recipe:
1.  Use a spoon to mix the first 6 ingredients
2.  When the dough is cool on the outside that does not necessarily mean that the dough is cool on the inside also.  Please check it carefully to avoid burning your finger!
3.  Only add a little bit of the additional flour as needed becuase if you add the entire cup right away sometimes it is too much flour and it ends up making a big mess.
4.  I found that if the dough was still sticky, it still needed more flour.  Once the dough stopped sticking to the counter and my hands then it was done and I let it sit for a few minutes or so.  I then go back and check the consistency again to make sure that it is not sticky and that my boys could play with it without it sticking to everything.

 These are the dry ingredients, just before I put in the water.  I put the water in last so that I can start mixing the ingredients while the water is still hot.

This is the Kool-Aid dough mixture shortly after I added the water and began to mix it.

I made two batches of the recipe.  It is hard to see from this picture but the Kool-Aid dough on the left was made with Grape Kool-Aid and the Kool-aid dough on the right was made with Cherry Kool-Aid.

 When the Kool-Aid dough was finished I told the boys and they were so excited!  They ran to get their play dough toys and went right to work. They were occupied the rest of the evening and this mommy was able to sit down with them and just play with the dough and unwind a bit.

When G plays with any kind of play dough he loves to mix the colors up.  It looks pretty at first but, after using it that way for a few days, it usually ends up just being gray play dough.  The boys played with the Kool-Aid play dough for about 20 minutes before G began mixing colors.  My mother calls this "creative play".  I am sure she is right but it is just amazing how such pretty colors, when mixed together again and again and again, can turn into a color that is not pretty at all!

When the boys are done we store the Kool-Aid dough in those large gallon Ziploc bags.  In Preschool, G's teacher stores it in a plastic container.

This mommy ended up have a relaxing, quiet evening with her little firefighters thanks to some creativity and Kool-Aid dough!