Thursday, June 07, 2007

Kid's Project

Every year, we make dough handprints for Father's Day for Blake. It's always fun to do with the kids and I love looking back on how they've grown. Thought I'd post the recipe, as it's super-easy and a sweet way to honor Dad. Enjoy!

What You Need
* 2 cups of flour
* 1 cup salt
* 1 cup water
* Food coloring
* Ribbon
* Gold marker
* Wax paper

How To Make It
1. Add food coloring to the water. I use pink for girls, blue for boys.
2. Mix all ingredients well, kneading until smooth. Dough should be pretty stiff, not soft or runny or it will fill with air bubbles when baking.
3. Form dough into a ball, of about what you can enclose in your two hands, and form into a round smooth ball.
4. Using a rolling pin with the dough on wax paper, roll out into as round of a circle as you can. Dough will be about 1/2 inch thick.
5. Press your child's hand with fingers splayed into the dough. Depending on child's age, you will have to help and individually press their fingers. Make sure to press deep enough without going completely to the bottom. (When it bakes it tends to raise the handprint up.)
6. Put on a cookie sheet.
7. Use a chop stick or pencil, etc. to make two holes in the top about 1/2 inch apart. This will be used to string the ribbon through.
8. Bake at 200 degrees for about 2-3 hours. Dough should be fairly hard but watch to see that it doesn't burn.
9. When they are done and cooled, use a gold marker pen and write the child's name and date (year). I put the child's name on top and the year on bottom, if there is room. If not, I put name on one side and year on one side. I tie a ribbon at the top (blue or pink - or gold) to use as a loop to hang.

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