When your child is diagnosed with Celiac disease, one thing that may slip your mind, as you’re removing the Oreos and Teddy Grahams from your cupboard, is the other non-food items that your child comes into contact with that could be making them ill. One of those seemingly harmless, but very dangerous, items is play dough. All homemade and commercially available play dough contain wheat flour as the main ingredient. And although your child should not be eating the play dough, we all know that children get carried away and like to nibble on their creations (until they’ve tasted it, that usually only happens once). Plus, since the gluten will dry all over their hands, it increases the chance of them accidentally ingesting the gluten, even if they don’t mean to.
By making this gluten-free play dough, your gluten-free child can have all the fun of making “cookies”, snakes, snowmen, and anything else their imaginations can conjure up. Because it is homemade, you can customize the colour, and if you decide to get funky, you can add some nice chunky glitter to make the play dough sparkle. Make a batch for at home and a batch for at school or preschool and your child will never be left out of the fun!
Gluten-free Play Dough
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup white rice flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 cup salt
- 2 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup water
- Liquid or gel food color, or 1 package dry Kool-Aid powder
- 1/2 tsp chunky glitter, your choice of color (optional)
- NOTE: I used glitter from the dollarstore, they are larger flakes, not superfine.
Liz says
What is chunky glitter and where would I find it?
Jeanine says
Hi Liz, it’s just a bigger flaked glitter, I got mine from the dollar store. You can find ultra fine glitter, which wouldn’t work as well, I don’t think. this stuff just gives bigger glitter pieces. 🙂
Heather Porrill says
I would not get any work done if I made this, I would be playing all day with the dough!
Jeanine says
Haha, maybe you should offer some for people in the tea room to play with. Keep them there longer. 😉
Heather says
I am going to, finally over 2 years later, going to make this play dough recipe. I am setting up a table at the local farmers market and want to have a few extras that are gluten free. Then I can sit there and play!
Jeanine says
Ah, Heather, I’m sure you’ll be so busy at the market, you won’t have time for it! 😉 I’ve started playing around with a glue & borax slime – I think you should make some of that, it woudl really get the kids attention!
Heather says
I like the dough!!! Not sure about the glue and borax slime, so I look forward to a post about it.
Margaret A. Massey says
The inner child comes to mind. Why shouldn’t you join in the fun!!
Jeanine says
Isn’t that the truth! 🙂 Always young at heart.
Jen B says
Thank you for the recipe! Definitely going to try it soon for the four year old!
Jeanine says
Awesome! Hope you have a great time playing play dough!
Pat Jahns-Kraak says
Just made this to replace the Playdoh-like product in our Cranium game – Didn’t want to take a chance that it contained gluten. This is great recipe – the result is so soft and pliable! Thank you – your recipes are always reliable!