Ask Ollie
Salt Dough Keepsakes
Here's one to try together!
Three pantry ingredients and a handprint you'll keep for years.
Reviewed by our team.
Safety first
- Not for eating: raw flour can carry bacteria
- Oven is adult only
- Cool fully before little hands touch it.
- Keep the dough and finished pieces away from pets.
What you need
- Flour, 1 cup
- Salt, 1/2 cup
- Water, 1/2 cup
- Bowl, 1 large
- Small cup, 1, for the water
- Baking sheet
- Newspaper, a few sheets
- Oven mitts, 1 pair
- Pencil, 1 (optional)
How to do it
Grown-up prep: Mix the flour and salt in a bowl, and set out a baking sheet for the bake at the end.
- A grown-up preheats the oven to 250°F. A grown-up does this
- Wash and dry your hands, ready to squish.
- Run your fingers through the flour and salt. Ask: Does it feel soft or scratchy?
- Pour in the water a little at a time and squish it together.
- Knead the dough ten times. Push it, fold it and turn it.
- Roll the dough flat, about as thick as a cookie.
- Press your hand into the dough, nice and firm. Ask: Whose hand is bigger?
- Use a fingertip to add dots, swirls or a heart.
- Bake at 250°F for about 2 hours, until hard. A grown-up does this
- Give your keepsake to someone special, and print every hand in the house! Ask: Whose hand should we print next?
Play it again
- Footprints: press a foot in instead of a hand for a giant print.
- Nature prints: press a leaf, a shell or a pinecone into the dough to see its pattern.
- Paint it: once it's cool, paint each finger a different color.
Kids loved this? There are more where it came from.
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