We don’t keep a lot of sweets in the house, but I’ve had a bag of marshmallows sitting on my counter for several weeks just tempting me! I’ve been wanting to try a new dough with the kids, something edible, and so when I saw Jen’s post on Mama Papa Bubba about a stretchy new dough I knew we had to make up some of our own! Because we enjoy pretend cooking so much, and because Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I themed this invitation to play as a marshmallow dough candy shop!
I love the supplies we got to begin doing tot trays, this compartmentalized tray is useful for setting up all sorts of activities! I made up a batch of the dough following this recipe from My Buddies and I, but mine didn’t come out as stretchy and pliable as I would have liked. If I were making it again, I would do something like this:
Marshmallow Dough Recipe
- 2 cups of cornstarch
- 4 cups of marshmallows
- 1 tablespoon of water
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- gel food coloring (I recently began using this gel food coloring and the colors are so much more vibrant than the ones from the grocery store!)
Heat the marshmallows and water on the stovetop at low heat, when all of the mallows have been melted, remove from heat and add the remaining ingredients, saving the cornstarch for last. Slowly add cornstarch as you stir, if you add too much your dough will be very crumbly, too little and it will be sticky. Once your dough is made, gather a few play dough supplies and you’re set! I included a plastic knife, a roller, a syringe, cookie cutters and a few pieces of cut up wax paper so they could wrap up their candies like a real store!
Aurora and Gray had lots of fun digging their fingers in to this dough! Like I mentioned before, ours came out a bit crumbly (and therefore messy), but it was still really easy to mold and blend colors. Rora loves to cut things, so she was all about slicing up some sweet confections!
It was Grayson who first discovered that the dough was edible, he’s normally very good about not putting sensory materials in his mouth, but after doing the Jello sensory bin last week he must have become bolder because in went the marshmallow dough to his mouth! Much to his delight it wasn’t toxic, in fact it was tasty, almost like a marshmallow taffy!
I’m in love with this magenta dough color, we tried to use the cookie cutters on it and it proved to be a bit to sticky to get the shapes to come out. It was, however, great for molding with so we focused our efforts on making cute candies!
Heart lozenges, swirly disks and spotted gum balls come out of our sweet shop. Rora had fun helping to roll snakes and twist them together, then she would cut them up in to bite sized pieces with her little plastic knife and we’d wrap them up in the wax paper. Grayson mostly made dough towers, layered with the different colors stacked and smooshed together. 馃檪
My little candy chefs are quite the pair, each working in their own way. Aurora so focused, Grayson maniacally scooping dough… I love how pretend and sensory play really brings out their personalities!
