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Nine colored salt dough hearts in various sizes

How to Make Colored Salt Dough

This simple and easy salt dough recipe uses only 4 ingredients (and one of them is the coloring). You can bake it in the oven and add decorations for beautifully colored salt dough ornaments to hang on a garland or Christmas tree. Great recipe for kids.
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes

Equipment

Ingredients
  

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour plus some for sprinkling later
  • 1 cup table salt
  • cups cold water maybe a little more or a little less
  • Powdered tempera paint It takes a lot of paint to make nice, bright colors. I don't measure precisely, but it was at least 2 tablespoons per ¼ of the salt dough recipe.

Instructions
 

  • Mix the flour and salt.
  • Add in the water until the dough is moistened but not sticky. If the dough is sticky, add a bit more flour to get it right. I use my stand mixer with the dough hook attachment to avoid all the stirring for this step.
  • I always have to go back and forth between adding flour and adding water until I get the right consistency. Since you're going to add powdery paint, it can be a little moist for now.
  • Separate the dough into 4 fist-sized balls. Return the first small ball of dough to the mixer and pour in the powdered paint. Use the dough hook to knead the color into the dough.
  • Play with the dough. If you mix the colors right before rolling it out, you'll have a pretty marbled dough similar to the first photo below. If you mix the colors and then play with it a while, you'll have a blended color like the later photos show.
  • To make shapes, sprinkle work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll out the dough to ¼"-½" and use cookie cutters to cut the shapes.
  • Bake the dough in the oven at 250ºF for 90 minutes, until it is dried out but not browned.
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