Baker's Clay Recipe - an alternative to Salt Dough

I love flicking back through old craft and home books and finding old ideas to introduce to my kids. One of my books has got a recipe for Baker's Clay made from kitchen cupboard ingredients and lovely to work with plus once dried in the oven it's hard and produces a white clay ornament. We've been making snowmen and tags with it for a couple of years and the ornaments get brought out and added to the tree but I've never paused long enough in the madness that becomes Christmas Crafting to share the recipe. Unlike our quickest ever salt dough - I really wouldn't recommend putting this in the microwave to speed up the process and from a couple of failed attempts don't leave it to air dry either the best method is to dry in the oven this avoids cracking and dries fairly quickly.

Baker's Clay is an easy recipe and the kids do help me a little, but as they are still young I'm a bit wary of them using the hob to heat the mixture so I tend to do that bit getting them to help me with the measuring and the kneading once it has cooled down.

Ingredients for Baker's Clay

¼ cup of corn flour (corn starch)

½ cup of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

⅓ cup of cold water

Cling Film (saran wrap)

Step by Step making Baker's Clay

Measure out the ingredients and pour into a saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon until it's really smooth - it will dissolve quickly.

On a lowish heat to medium stir the mixture constantly whilst it blends - don't be surprised if it looks like it's reacting that's normal and the kids love when it does that.

When the mixture thickens and starts to come away from the sides in a dough like substances remove from the heat and leave to cool for a little while. It's important that you do it as soon as this happens otherwise you loose too much water and get crumbly clay.

When the Baker's Clay is cooled enough for you to touch take it out of the pan and mould into a ball.

Wrap in cling film and leave till it's room temp and cool.

When it's cool you don't need to flour the surface it's dry to the touch but mouldable and you can use it just like salt dough or air drying clay.

Don't worry about your pan - Soak it for 10 minutes in warm water and the mix comes right off with a quick wipe no problems at all - although I do tend to use an old "craft pan" for things like this.

To dry place in an oven on it's lowest setting - like oven dried salt dough they can take 1 - 3 hours to dry. I line the baking tray I use with some baking paper and then check on it regularly after the first hour to make sure that they are drying. Once they are dry remove from the oven and leave to cool.

These make fantastic little ornaments, gift tags and with pure white clay you could get really crafty and stamp them afterwards using a permanent ink pad to add a special message if you wished.

Out Now! - Countdown to Christmas Ebook

When life gets hectic in the lead up to Christmas wouldn't it be great to be able to spend a little time with the family creating gifts for others, food to enjoy together and traditions that make magical Christmas Memories?

But what actually happens is you spend hours searching through Pinterest looking for ideas and realise halfway through saying you are going to start that you have only 1 thing on the materials list!

I've been there!

So that is why we've put together our 24 favourite Christmas Activities, Crafts and Recipes with full materials lists and step-by-step instructions so that you have everything at your fingertips.

Produced as a PDF you can download, print and use these ideas throughout the festive season with your children and families.

Find out more as we share with you our Favourite Ways to Countdown to Christmas.

Counting down to Christmas

For the last 3 weeks we have been counting down to Christmas sharing Paper Crafts, Handmade Gifts and now recipes with you that you and the kids can make at home. This week with recipes we're sharing our Baker's Clay recipe that you can use to create gifts, ornaments or even gift tags for presents.

As in previous weeks I am joined by some amazing bloggers sharing recipes with you to do this Christmas. Please pop on over to their sites to find out what they have been cooking up in the kitchen for you this week.

If you have any Christmas themed posts we welcome you to add them to our Linky Below - All the way through to January 6th you are welcome to come and add Christmas crafts, activities, recipes and family-friendly fun.

Author

Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, high school teacher and mum. Realising that life doesn't have to be put on hold and you don't just have to survive whilst the kids are young she shares ideas to inspire you to LIVE with the kids, with activities to do together, recipes to cook and enjoy and family travel to make memories to last a lifetime.