Celebrate the holiday season with this Homemade Gingerbread Playdough! Super-soft, cinnamon-scented playdough without salt, ideal as a Christmas sensory play activity. Plus, this playdough is made with only kitchen pantry ingredients and is edible!
There’s nothing better to welcome the Christmas season than Christmas kids activities, and this Gingerbread playdough will make your house smell amazing!
Ingredients and Substitutions
The ingredients you need to make this scented playdough are:
- All-purpose flour
- Cream of tartar – don’t skip this ingredient because it’s the secret to making super-soft playdough that last month!
- Vegetable oil – I used light-flavored oil like canola oil to avoid masking the gingerbread spices flavors.
- Maple syrup – that’s optional, but a touch of liquid sweetener adds a real gingerbread cookie flavor to the dough. You can also use molasse, coconut nectar, or golden syrup.
- Gingerbread Spices – I used Ginger, Cinnamon, all spices, and nutmeg.
- Water
How to Make Gingerbread Playdough
It’s so easy to make this Christmas playdough activity for young children.
- First, add all the dry ingredients into a medium saucepan, whisk to combine, and add water and oil. Bring the saucepan over medium heat and stir to combine.
- At first, the playdough is almost liquid, and it starts forming pieces of dough as you go. Keep cooking and stirring until the playdough unsticks from the pan and forms a ball.
- Transfer onto a floured surface covered with parchment paper, and knead the dough until soft, non-sticky, and consistent.
Playing Ideas
The young children love this playdough even more if you provide some Christmas-related tools to play with. I like to give the kids some:
- Christmas Cookie Cutters, including the classic gingerbread man cookie cutter, of course! but also stars, trees, or Santa cookie cutters.
- Christmas Sprinkles
- Rolling Pin
- Googly Eyes
Christmas Playdough Ornament
The fun thing with this Christmas scented playdough is that you can cook it and make ornaments for your tree!
- Start by preheating your oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Then, cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, lightly oil the paper with vegetable oil.
- Next, place the Gingerbread men shapes on the paper, leaving half thumb space between each.
- Use a straw to dig a hole on the top of the shape – this is then used to place a string and hang the Christmas ornament onto the Christmas tree.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.
- Cool it down on a wire rack.
- Decorate the Gingerbread ornament with a metallic paint pen or royal icing and sprinkles.
Frequently Asked Questions
Keep cooking the dough and increase heat to evaporate the water, and keep stirring constantly. Another way to fix it is to knead the dough with extra flour.
Storage
Place the Gingerbread Playdough in an airtight container or plastic bag. Store it in a cool place for up to 1 month. After a few days, the scent of this scented playdough increases, and the house smells like Christmas! Have you made this gingerbread playdough recipe? Share a comment or review below, and happy holiday season to all.
Gingerbread Playdough
Materials
- 1 cup All-Purpose Flour spoon, slightly packed, level up
- 2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar
- 1 tablespoon Cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon Ginger
- ½ teaspoon All Spices
- 1 cup Water
- 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup or molasse
- 1 tablespoon Oil I used coconut oil
Extra flour to adjust the dough
- 1-3 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
- In a non-stick saucepan, whisk all the dry ingredients: flour, spices, and cream of tartar.
- Stir in water, oil, and maple syrup until it forms a consistent paste.
- Bring to medium heat and cook the playdough, stirring constantly, increasing heat if needed until the dough clumps up and form a ball that unsticks from the side of the pan.
- When the dough comes together, stop heat, transfer to a floured surface and knead until soft and easy to play with.
- If the dough is too sticky, dust 1 extra tablespoon of flour and vigorously knead on a for 1 minute. As the dough cools down and absorbs the extra flour, it becomes super soft and less sticky.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month.
