I love Salt Dough but it takes an age to bake which if you have toddlers and preschoolers means that whilst it bakes you can have lots of “When’s it going to be ready” so thanks to a virtual friend I was told about this quickest ever salt dough recipe… and what’s more it really works.
Salt Dough Recipe
1/2 cup of salt
1/2 cup of water
1 cup of flour
How to make the salt dough
Add the 1/2 cup of salt and 1 cup of flour to a bowl stir in the water adding it slowly – you may not need all of the water. You want the dough to be dry – if it gets sticky add more flour. Knead the dough and then roll out and use as you want.
Once you have made the shapes you want then you need to dry them so you can paint. Traditionally salt dough is dried in the oven which takes around 3 hours at a low heat so they don’t burn. But instead swap your oven for a microwave and zap for 3 mins. If when the time is up they are still a little wet then just put back in for another 20 seconds at a time until done. Leave to cool down and then paint.
For ideas of what to do with salt dough check out our
Salt dough Dinosaurs over on Make and Takes, Salt dough place names for your Christmas table and last years salt dough Christmas decorations.
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Oh thank you for that – I shall give this a try.
pinkoddy recently posted..Road Safety Week
Love saltdough!! Great for kids and great for ornaments!
Thanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
maggy, red ted art recently posted..Kids Craft: Kids Art Advent Calendar (for Granny!)
Wow thank you, this sounds great will have to try it very soon
What to do with the children recently posted..Christmas decoration
I love this recipe and especially since you can dry in the microwave!
Deborah recently posted..Our Thanksgiving chart
Great tip! Only we don’t have a microwave,lol.
Isil recently posted..Hotel Chocolat Review and Giveaway
I’m very happy to know I can put it in the MW to have it dry quicker. Thanks!
Susan Case recently posted..ARK – Acts of Random Kindness for Kids & Adults with Free Printables
This is awesome thanks for sharing, this is a huge help in the past we’ve always either moulded or painted as I can never keeps the boys attention long enough to do both. Who knew you could microwave it! Off to pin. Thanks.
Hannah @ Making Boys Men recently posted..DIY Busy Board & Gift blog hop
Tried this just now and it’s great, so fast and easy. My toddler really enjoyed it. Thank you!
Just had a go at this with my daughter but am I doing something wrong?! The salt dough is puffing up in the microwave, my decorations are a disaster :0/
It maybe that your microwave has a higher setting than mine. Mine is quite old so a D or C setting. Instead of blasting at full heat try reducing the heat to 80% and taking it at 30 second intervals. (This is what I had to do at a friends who had a new microwave)
Did you use SR flour or plain? Need plain flour for salt dough.
Love this! Made decorations for our Christmas tree and made salt dough handprints to hang on the tree. All my boys loved it, the 2 14year olds and the 2year old. Great activity for them all to do together, thanks!
[...] have been making salt dough stars to use as gift tags, using Rainy day mums salt dough recipe what’s great about this salt dough is that it can be cooked in the microwave in about 3 [...]
Love it! We used your recipe to make 25 Advent Jesse Tree ornaments! We had to adjust the microwave settings a bit, but I am seriously in love with this recipe!! Thank you, Cerys!
Here’s our post which links back to you for the recipe: http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/2012/12/DIY-Advent-Jesse-Tree-Ornaments-Microwave-Salt-Dough.html
great the kids loved this,so did i if im honest`
What’s your microwave wattage?
Made some more and linked to ya again! Did I mention I *love* microwave salt dough??? Thank you!! http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/2012/12/easy-disney-cars-ornaments-gift-tags.html
Genny @ In Lieu of Preschool recently posted..Easy Disney CARS Ornaments & Gift Tags
[...] 4: Salt dough ornaments (we used this microwavable recipe: her’s took 3 minutes, mine took about 2 and flipping them over at the minute mark helped [...]
[...] Oven on a low heat – if you would like to a try a quicker recipe then check out our Quickest Ever Salt Dough Recipe [...]
[...] used our Quickest Ever Salt dough Recipe and made up a batch according to the recipe [...]
I dunno what I did wrong but it did not work at all. The dough bubbled up and burned to a crisp. My house smells like burnt popcorn now
and the hand print is fried…
[...] Salt Dough decorations are fun to make and produce ornaments that you can use year after year bringing back memories of Christmas past with your kids – Dotty Mum of One shares her Advent fun with these Salt Dough Decorations using our Quickest Ever Salt Dough Recipe. [...]
We just made these yesterday. I did the oven thing over nap time, but the microwave is worth a shot next time!!
Lindsey Whitney recently posted..Truth in Tinsel: Week Three
This worked fine – until we made 3D snowmen… which exploded and then caught fire.
Worked really well for thin/2D shapes, not so much for 3D shapes!
[...] Salt Dough. After a quick google search, I was delighted to find this super easy peasy recipe here. It makes the perfect amount of dough for just a couple of kids, so double it if you are [...]
I’m guessing I should have read the comments first, huh? We had a lot of fun anyway, so thanks!
Salt dough is not successful being microwaved and this is not just something I am telling you but something which has been proven and written about in books too. The dough rises and whilst on the outside looks puffy and cooked inside it is usually split apart and not cooked. I would recommend baking it properly or putting it on trays in the sunshine in the summer months to dry through. Clearly if you only are making things which are not works of art you might want to still try them in the microwave but I don’t bother but dry them in the oven low or outside.
[...] received this salt dough heart from my grand sons for Valentines. It looks like an easy enough project for young children. [...]
Thanks You!!! You just saved my life with this recipe! We were supposed to make these tonight with a group of Young Women. Needless to say it was dumped on me at the last min. When I started searching… I saw a minimum of 2 hour bake time! We have 1 hour to be done. But the microwave once again saves the day!
Thank You!!!!!!
[...] First we followed these simple instructions for super quick drying salt dough by Rainy Day Mum. [...]
Great recipe! I used less water and so that they did not break or burn I microwaved for three minutes the first time, and one minute intervals after that.
Fab I didn’t realise I could dry it in the microwave
30 seconds in the microwave left me with lots of smoke a black puffed up cinder… Don’t know if ill ever get the smell out of here.
[...] has been a huge Disney Cars fan for a few years now. When I saw Rainy Day Mum’s Quickest Ever Salt Dough recipe and remembered I had William Sonoma’s Cars 2 cookie cutters in my kitchen drawer, I knew it [...]
Wow. 3 minutes WAAAAY too long in my microwave. Sat down to nurse youngest and house filled with smoke. eek. I guess this is super dependent on microwave wattage.
oh I do remember making salt dough when I was little. wonderful that you can now do this with a microwave, I’d never have worked it out for myself even though it’s actually totally sensibl!
Fiona Maclean recently posted..5-2 Diet Seafood Spelt Pancakes
Love this just made these for my mum for Mother’s Day xxx
just made these for my mum for Mother’s Day! Love this recipe!
Just did this…. and the microwave just billowed with smoke! 2 frightened children here, thanks a lot!!
Never knew you could dry salt dough in the microwave! We made ornaments a few days ago and they still havent air dried- into the microwave this morning to take home today! Thank you for such a fab tip!
I used this recipe and it worked great, although I put it in for three minutes and after 2 minutes it was starting to burn. The next lot i just went for 30 seconds at a time which worked great!!
Disaster
Did this recipe out of desperation for something to do…..only had SR flour in cupboard, so my shapes ended up a bit bigger!!!! But it still worked a treat. Microwave dries out dough in the same way as defrosting bread for too long in the microwave….rubbery, then rock-hard! Had trouble trying to persuade my 3 year oldnot to eat them.
more money in shitty pop music than country. i like country better? myself but it’s the sad truth.
The microwave is a bad idea. I did a microwave one and it looks like my salt dough has eaten too much of the cookie dough. The oven one looks the same as it went in.
It did make the perfect amount of salt dough,but microwave ruined it.
I did not realize you could nuke the salt dough and save so much time! I totally just passed this post on! Thanks, Cerys!
tricia recently posted..A Week Of Parenting: The Before And After Photos
I don’t know what wattage microwave you have, but both of the batches I made yesterday…STARTED ON FIRE! My whole kitchen was filled with smoke and stink…not to mention how dreadful it left my microwave! From now on I’ll stick to cooking the dough for 3 hours in the oven.