Your kids will love this gingerbread playdough! This gingerbread playdough recipe not only smells amazing, but it promotes pretend play! Make gingerbread men and decorate them! This is perfect for kids of all ages regardless if you use this gingerbread playdough at home or in the classroom.

Gingerbread Playdough

What better way to get festive this year than making Christmas gingerbread man. Unfortunately, these ones are not edible, but decorating these guys are just as fun.

Plus this gingerbread playdough smells like real cookies!

But finding the perfect Christmas Preschool craft is easy when you look to the basics because you can make simple likes like this gingerbread playdough.

Playing with play dough and Gingerbread Men are a match made in Christmas activity heaven.

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Related: More edible playdough recipes we love and Whimsical Gingerbread House Coloring Pages!

Gingerbread Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients Needed for Gingerbread Playdough Recipe

We are going to use one of our popular playdough recipe for this craft, but adding a Christmas touch to it!

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 3 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water
• 1 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp Ground ginger

Directions To Make Gingerbread Playdough Recipe

Step 1

Pour 2 cups of  flour into a bowl along with all the spices.

Step 2

Add 1/2 cup of salt.

Step 3

Mix in 2 tbsp Cream of Tartar.

Notes:

(You can find this in the spice section of just about any grocery store.)

Step 4

Add 2 tbsp of oil. For this recipe I used vegetable oil, but you can use any oil, and as long as it’s a kitchen oil.

Step 5

Your playdough will be non-toxic and safe if a little one takes a tiny taste. The sodium level is very high, so we don’t encourage this to double as a snack.

Step 6

Pour in the boiling water. Be VERY careful because this makes the dough HOT!

Step 7

Mix all the ingredients together until they form the dough. At this point, if you don’t want to add any food dye to your playdough, you’re finished!

Step 8

After it’s cooled, to make several different colors of playdough, separate the dough into equal parts and roll it up into balls.

Step 9

Now, punch out the middle of the ball to leave a little bowl for you to pour your gel food dye into.

Step 10

Drip your gel dye into the bowls. This is a great time to mix dye colors if you want to make another color.

Step 11

Knead the dough until the dye is thoroughly mixed.

Notes:

This is VERY messy! If you don’t want to stain your hands, use gloves, and make sure to put something down so you don’t stain your counter (like I did).

Our Experience Making Gingerbread Playdough

I made a batch of our home made play dough and added cocoa powder to make it a lovely golden brown color. You could add brown food coloring instead of cocoa powder if that’s what you happen to have on hand.

I also added cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger which gave the play dough the most delicious aroma.

Our Experience With This Fun Gingerbread Playdough Recipe

We rolled out our play dough, and got to work cutting out our gingerbread men with our cookie cutter.

We decorated our play dough gingerbread men with googly eyes, buttons and sequins.

You could use anything you like to decorate these cute gingerbread folk – colored scraps of paper, beads, play dough in different colors that has been rolled into balls for buttons, bottle tops, colored popsicle sticks or toothpicks.

Just use your imagination and have fun!

We created so many of these sweet little gingerbread men and each one was unique. I think the green sequined shoes on the little guy in the picture above would have to be my favorite!

Christmas Preschool Craft with Play Dough Gingerbread Man

Print

This Gingerbread playdough is the perfect Christmas craft for preschoolers. It smells good like real cookies and you can decorate it too!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Active Time 20 minutes

Additional Time 5 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Difficulty easy

Estimated Cost $15-$20

Materials

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 3 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water
• 1 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground ginger

Instructions

1. Pour 2 cups of  flour into a bowl along with all the spices.
2. Add 1/2 cup of salt.
3. Mix in 2 tbsp Cream of Tartar. (You can find this in the spice section of just about any grocery store.)
4. Add 2 tbsp of oil. For this recipe I used vegetable oil, but you can use any oil, and as long as it’s a kitchen oil, your playdough will be non-toxic and safe if a little one takes a tiny taste.  The sodium level is very high, so we don’t encourage this to double as a snack.
5. Pour in the boiling water. Be VERY careful because this makes the dough HOT!
6. Mix all the ingredients together until they form the dough. At this point, if you don’t want to add any food dye to your playdough, you’re finished!
7. After it’s cooled, to make several different colors of playdough, separate the dough into equal parts and roll it up into balls.
8. Now, punch out the middle of the ball to leave a little bowl for you to pour your gel food dye into.
9. Drip your gel dye into the bowls. This is a great time to mix dye colors if you want to make another color.
10. Knead the dough until the dye is thoroughly mixed. This is VERY messy! If you don’t want to stain your hands, use gloves, and make sure to put something down so you don’t stain your counter (like I did).

More Homemade Play Dough from Kids Activities Blog

• Try this fun homemade play doh ice cream!
• Make playdough animals with this fun activity.
• This fall playdough is scented like autumn.
• This is a fun play dough cake idea for birthdays.
• Make this adorable and sweet Peeps playdough recipe.
• This Christmas playdough idea is a candy cane with both white play dough and red.
• Hosting a Gingerbread house decorating party? We have the best gingerbread house ideas!
• Make Kool Aid Playdough…it smells delicious!
• This sparkly and colorful galaxy playdough is really cool and easily made at home.
• This homemade playdough with essential oils is our favorite sick day activity.
• All of our favorite homemade play dough recipes.

How did you like this gingerbread playdough recipe?