Home Made Playdough!

Looking for something that will keep your kids quiet while your entertaining this weekend? What about a last minute stocking stuffer, something special for your kids to give thier best friend maybe? This cheap and easy to make playdough will definately do the trick! 

Another rainy day here yesterday so I got my kids busy mixing up playdough...they love it, we have been making this stuff for years it's much cheaper than the stuff you get at toyworld and in my opinion much better and it will last for a long time if you store it in an airtight container.

Here is ours packaged up ready to go...I used plastic noodle boxes because I had them in my cupboard but I have also used baby food containers or those little plastic containers take away food comes in...we also added a gingerbread man for cuteness sake :)  If you want to make some too...here is the recipe!

Play Dough

2 cups plain flour

4 tbs cream of tartar

2 tbs cooking oil (I used vegetable oil)

1 cup salt

2 cups water

food colouring

(for chocolate playdough leave out the food colouring and add 1/4 cup baking cocoa)

Throw everything into a large saucepan and mix well, place on the stove and continuously stir over medium heat until the mixture congeals (about 3 minutes).  Remove and allow to cool, knead on a floured board until smooth!

We made four batches - one each of chocolate, blue, green and pillar box red.  This gave us enough dough to fill six of the pictured noodle boxes. 

{Free Recipe!} Banana Bread

Yesterday my sister in law asked me if I had a banana muffin recipe, all I could give her was my banana bread recipe which my kids love to eat hot out of the oven with a little butter spread on top...mmm.  Today I had a few over ripe bananas in the fruit basket so I thought I would try this mix as muffins instead of in a loaf pan, I added in 1/2 a cup of chocolate chips and they came out pretty good.  So these are for you Carolyn, YES! they do come out OK as muffins.  TIP: give your papers a light spray of cooking oil before you fill them.

My 3 year old son won't eat banana's but he loved these, chocolate makes everything taste good, right!  This is a good one for the lunchboxes...

Quick & Easy Banana Bread

1 3/4 cups SR Flour

1/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs, lightly whisked

50g butter, melted

2 overripe bananas, mashed (I use 3 or 4)

Pre heat oven 180c & line loaf pan

Combine flours & cinnamon in bowl, stir in sugar, make a well in the centre.  Place the milk eggs, butter & bannana in a bowl and mix well.  Add the bannana mix to the flour mix and stir until just combined.  Pour into pan and bake for about 45 minutes.