We’ve all played with Playdoh, maybe even sampled it, but one thing is for sure, if you’re going to sample a dough, make it salt dough! Ok, I’m not advocating playing with your food and eating it, but one thing is for sure if you have a small herd of children scheduled to wander through your home for a birthday party and activities are needed, salt dough could be just the thing!

The nice thing about salt dough is it’s easy to make, non-toxic (hence the edible part), can be painted and will air dry. You could also bake it at 200 degrees for a few minutes for extra hardness or to speed up the drying process, since items really shouldn’t be painted until after they are dry.

Here’s a basic recipe that will make a large batch:

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups hot water
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Sift the flour and salt together and set aside. If you want change the color of your dough, tint the hot water with some food coloring. Never the dry ingredients directly! Add the hot water to the flour and salt mixture gradually, as it becomes more elastic and sticky. Add the vegetable oil, mix well.

If the mixture seems to be crumbly, add more water and if too wet, more flour. Roll it out on a flat surface with a rolling pin, section it out into pieces and let the kids dig in! (Might want to put a disposable plastic table cloth down first. Just a suggestion.)

Provide an assortment of cookie cutters, chopsticks, rolling pins or anything of that nature that the kids can use to shape, pinch or roll the dough with.

Here are some ideas from around the web:

All Free Crafts blog: Halloween crafts. Create Halloween shapes or little pumpkins!

Crafts Kaboose: Christmas ornaments. Create ornaments with cookie cutters and some ribbon!

Multi Hobbies: Lots of great ideas! Sculptures and more.

Morton’s Salt even made a salt dough handbook.