When I was taking stock of things in my pantry, I noticed we had an expired box of pancake mix. I don’t think we used the stuff much anyway. I bought it on a whim and made pancakes once and that was it. I did, however, keep it aside for Peach, knowing we’d find something fun to do with it, like making playdough! We made home made playdough in the past, but never with something as exciting as old pancake mix.
I googled for recipes using pancake mix and didn’t find much. Most recipes call for flour and cream of tartar. Eventually, I came up with the following recipe. It’s a great way to use the old pancake mix. Of course, it wasn’t so old that it was unsafe. I used common sense to conclude that it was still safe.
What you’ll need (I actually used double the ingredients, but changed it here for reasons listed at the end):
- 1 cup pancake mix
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- almond extract
- food colouring
I’m missing the salt and almond extract here.
In a pot, on medium heat, add the pancake mix and salt. Then add the water, oil and vinegar and stir. The vinegar was used in place of cream of tartar. Once you start stirring the mixture, it becomes thicker as it heats up. Eventually, it looks lumpy (this shouldn’t take too long).
On a clean surface, lay out the dough (you should be able to form a ball). Be careful, though, as it’s going to be hot. Once you are able to handle it, you can add the almond extract (or whatever you want) and knead the dough. I have to say that the almond extract didn’t really do much for the final product. Next time, I might add a drop of scented oil (or nothing at all).
Eventually, you should be able to form one big ball of dough. If it’s too sticky or oily, you can add a bit of the pancake mix to even it out.
Then, cut the dough into equal pieces.
Now, the fun part! Peach helped me add the food colouring and knead each piece of dough. Depending on your counter, you will want to be careful with the food colouring.
While I loved how it turned out initially, I did find that it became a bit too soft eight hours later. The next day, it was too soft to be considered playdough really. I added some of the remaining pancake mix and that seemed to help a bit. Next time, I think I’ll halve the ingredients (that is, if I ever find myself with leftover pancake mix). But, really, without regular flour, it just isn’t the same!
FYI: I went back and halved the ingredient list, so that you don’t end making the same mistake I did. While it’s not the playdough Peach is used to, she had a lot of fun with it and even made some colourful “cookies” she “baked”.
If you end up trying this out, I’d love to know how it turned out for you!
colour me rain 