Winter’s on the way – time to break out the snow playdough recipe.
Based our our favourite no cook play dough recipe, this snow version has one important variation: we use corn flour instead of regular flour, to get a much whiter dough. And of course we added lots of sliver glitter to give a frosty sparkle to the dough.
Snow playdough recipe
Here’s the no cook snow play dough recipe:
2 cups corn flour (cornstarch in the US) I do find cornflour a little temperamental, so be prepared to add more flour if needed
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
silver glitter
Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until your dough forms – then you’re done and ready to play.
And what do you make with a snow playdough recipe? Snowmen of course!
Twigs from the garden for arms.
Raisins or acorns for eyes. Red tissue paper for scarves.
Some of the playdough snowmen were so happy their smiles were this big.
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Love this idea! Thank you for sharing.
Georgia 🙂
They are amazing! …something else for me to try! x
Really cute and what a great idea….no snow here yet!
that is brilliant! We shall be making that next week. Thanks for linking to science sparks!
Ooo love this! I’m thinking of giving this as a Xmas gift – if it’s kept in a tin will it last a while before it dries out? Thanks!
Helen, it should last for ages if it’s kept wrapped up. Ours lasts for months and months.
Great, thanks Cathy!
This looks like SO much fun! My daughter would love this. Thank you so much for sharing! I’d love for you to stop by and share this (or another great activity) at my new Thrifty Thursday Linky Party this Thursday! It would be PERFECT!
https://www.playingwithwords365.com/
Katie
GREAT idea, especially for those of us who rarely experience snow! thanks so much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday, hope to see you back the 1st Sunday in January! Have a wonderful holiday season!
I have just finished making this now the kids are in bed. It looks and feels great. I have put it in the fridge to make it nice and cold for playing with tomorrow!
I did heat it in a pan in the end as I didn’t think it was going to work – the way cornflour and water goes gloopy, plus the way you need to to stir and stir before the play dough comes together got me a bit stuck when I tried to make it in a rush while feeding 3 kids!
Thanks as ever Cathy for the great ideas.
We are also loving the Christmas jokes in our Advent calendar…
I know what you mean Laura – there is always that moment when everything is still gloopy and you wonder if it’s going to work – and then the playdough magic happens!
Just had an idea for playing with this snow dough – how about getting out the plastic Christmas cake decorations and also some Christmassy cupcake papers and making iced cakes from the dough? They would look great.
Laura, that would be fun!
LOVE your idea-snow much fun. I’d love for you to stop in and link this up in my new Christmas Crafts & Recipe link up!
https://3boysandadog.com/deals/2011/christmas-crafts-and-recipes-link-up/
Thanks, Kelli
Can this recipe be left to air dry so children’s creations can be kept? Fab site .. Love it!! 😉
Hi Sharon. Yes it can – we often leave them to dry out if the girls have made something they especially want to keep. It might take a while (a few days?) if you’ve made something chunky. And if you make something in pieces that you’ve joined together – like two balls to make a snowman – you might want to use a cocktail stick inside to give a little extra strength and hold the pieces together.
Great !! We will be doing it on Monday, I will let you know how we get on!! 😉 xx
Fab Sharon – we’d love to see some photos!
This is funny! I wish it would be winter. 😉
Please can you inform me if anyone has ever really made this, I am in my kitchen with a disaster on my hands. I followed everything to the tee! And i got a corn flour goo without the goo… I cant explain it but it is not playdough. I added more cornflour AND nothing helped. I added more water but nothing. My child is not looking too happy with me today.
Oh, so sorry to hear it didn’t work for you robyn. We’ve made this recipe – you can see all our snowmen in the pictures.
i used a 16 oz box of corn starch with 1 1/2 cup boiling water and put xtra cornstarch on my counter for kneading it in
let the dough sit white cooling and turn out on a cornstarch
it came together quite nicely add essential oils too for fun scents
What fun for winter! And I love your natural snowman accessories! I featured your post and photo in my Montessori-inspired Winter Playdough Activities at https://livingmontessorinow.com/2013/01/14/montessori-monday-montessori-inspired-winter-playdough-activities/
We have been playing with different types of “snow” and your recipe was one of the types we compared.
Thanks,
Sara
https://brainstorminbloom.blogspot.com/2013/01/comparing-snow-sensory-tubs.html
I have made this from the recipe but it just goes gloppy. How do I get it to form a dough?
Hi Elsa. Sorry to hear you had trouble with the dough. Did you follow all the measurements exactly? And use the right type of flour? If so, then it should come together to a dough. Flour of course is a natural substance, so sometimes it might be a little drier/wetter, but not all that much. If it’s a bit gloopy, adding a little bit of extra flour might help.
I want to make this for about 20 kids. How many recipes will that take, do you think?
Hi Jennifer. I would guess four or five if they’re all playing at the same time.
This recipe did not work for me as written. 1.5cups of water to 3 cups of cornstarch and salt = gloppy mess. I let it sit for a while and then cooked it, and now it’s fine. Maybe you should double check the water quantity? I cut the recipe in half, and then tried using half a cup of water, but that still seemed like too much, for a no cook recipe.
Hi, we had the same gloopy mess tried several times altering the water but still not like dough at all. Such a shame the pictures look so good. Back to ordinary play dough with added glitter.
I’m sorry to hear some of you have had gloopy results. You can see from my photos – and Sara’s review – that the recipe does work. I think any time you are working with a natural material like flour there will be some possibility of it needing more flour / less water. And as I mentioned in the recipe, corn flour in particular does seem to be a little temperamental.
We had the opposite problem to most people – ours was too dry. It worked fantastically for about ten minutes but then crumbled apart. I made a second batch using 1 cup of cornflour and 1 cup of plain flour and that worked really well.
I want to try this! I wonder if it would be even whiter with baby oil? I might try potato flour since that is cheape rand more common where I live. It seems identical, too.
You’ll have to let me know how your recipe turns out Amber!
Lol potato flour did NOT work. It was a gelatinous mess. Too bad because it is so much cheaper here. (Finland) I have used it interchangeably with cornstarch before though. I might try it with cornstarch again sometime.