Salt Dough Help Please

[DaycareMama]

So I made salt dough with the kids to make handprint plaques but I under estimated the importance of putting them on those cookie cooling rack things and left them to dry on plastic art trays. Resulting in 4 day old lump of crusty top layered but mushy bottom layered mess. I managed to pry them off the trays and flip them but doing this I made them extremely fragile. So here are my questions

Can I finish drying the dough in the oven?
If so how?
For future use can I just bake them right off the bat saving major time?
And is the recipe I used the best?

One cup flour, half cup salt and half cup water?

[Michael]

Some other threads: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=salt+dough

[SimpleMom]

I have always used that recipe for playdough, but I'm sure you could bake them right off the bat.

[MyAngels]

Check out the second thread of Michael's link - I made these last year and baked them for hours and hours and they never quite dried out. The second set I made (after the dough had been prepared the day before) worked much better.

[DaycareMama]

thanks for the help guys. I had them out side baking in the sun all day till I can get up stairs tonight to try and cook them.

I think I ruined them though Im curious because I have 2 left over batches that sat in my fridge since monday. I will make one the same way as I did the screwed up batch and bake the other right away.

maybe because it sat like previous poster said it will come out better? I will keep you posted.

[MyAngels]

thanks for the help guys. I had them out side baking in the sun all day till I can get up stairs tonight to try and cook them.

I think I ruined them though Im curious because I have 2 left over batches that sat in my fridge since monday. I will make one the same way as I did the screwed up batch and bake the other right away.

maybe because it sat like previous poster said it will come out better? I will keep you posted.

The other thing I thought about last year when I made them was to maybe bake them on parchment paper directly on the oven rack, rather than on a pan. I didn't actually try it, but that might allow the heat to get all the way around them and allow them to bake all the way through.

[kendallina]

We made beads the other day and used this recipe:

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups cold water

Mix together ingredients and knead dough for 10-15 minutes (this is necessary, so I had the kids knead a small amount each while I kneaded the rest of the dough and that's what we actually used). Form whatever shapes you want and bake at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours.

It worked great for the beads except we made the holes too small. We're trying again next week and will use a skewer to make the holes this time, hopefully that works better. But, it should work with whatever shapes you want to do, though! Hope that helps.

[mariagarcia495]

Hey thanks for this method, I was looking for the same.

[bluemoose_mom]

We made beads the other day and used this recipe:

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups cold water

Mix together ingredients and knead dough for 10-15 minutes (this is necessary, so I had the kids knead a small amount each while I kneaded the rest of the dough and that's what we actually used). Form whatever shapes you want and bake at 250 degrees for 2-3 hours.

It worked great for the beads except we made the holes too small. We're trying again next week and will use a skewer to make the holes this time, hopefully that works better. But, it should work with whatever shapes you want to do, though! Hope that helps.

Can you paint these? Or use food coloring? Which method would work better, do you think?