Jelly Bean Play Dough

Did you know that you can make jelly bean play dough? It smells fantastic!

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Easter is such a fun time of year, with all the fantastic colours and the whole outdoor world coming to life. It is also a time for indulging in some delicious seasonal candy.

Recently I found some Wonka Laffy Taffy Jelly Beans – I am a huge fan of Wonka candy and couldn’t resist. The flavors are grape, banana, cherry and apple. The smell reminded me of scented play dough – so I decided to make some jelly bean play dough! That’s just the way my mind works. 🙂

Preparing the Jelly Beans

I sorted the jelly beans by colour (after consuming several for quality control purposes) – and placed them in microwavable bowls.

I added ½ cup water to each bowl and cooked it on high in the microwave for 1½ minutes until all the colour from the beans had dissolved into the water. I strained the beans and discarded them, reserving the water – I wanted that wonderful scent and color, not the actual bean!!

Making the play dough

Ingredients (to make one colour of jelly bean play dough):

½ cup AP flour (plain flour)
½ cup reserved water from melting jelly beans as above
2 tbs salt
1 tsp cream of tartar

In a saucepan (preferably nonstick), combine the ingredients until the mixture is fairly smooth – it is OK if a few little lumps remain.

Place the saucepan over a low-medium heat and stir regularly. As the mixture starts to thicken, stir constantly. Soon it will start to pull away from the sides of the saucepan and form a ball. As this makes quite a small batch of play dough the cooking time should only be a couple of minutes.

Jelly Bean Play Dough - homemade play recipe that smells amazing!

Remove from the heat and place the play dough ball on some parchment or wax paper. It might look a little lumpy at this point! Once it has cooled enough to touch, knead it for a minute or two until smooth.

Then I repeated all this three more times for the other colors!

The play dough has a lovely soft texture and is not sticky at all. I love the pretty Easter colors and the amazing scent – particularly the grape and cherry!