Experimenting with Ice Cream Dough

Here’s the original post on Ice Cream Dough from Play Create Explore. I hadn’t set out to experiment, just wanted to make the original recipe but then my enquiring mind ran away with me 😉

 

Experimenting with Ice Cream Dough

(E is 2 years and 5 months old.)

Their recipe calls for conditioner and cornstarch. I simply bought the cheapest bottle of conditioner I could find and mixed it with the cornstarch without measuring.

As I was mixing, the dough suddenly became extremely sticky. I thought I had added too much conditioner but simply kept handling it because my hands were much too sticky to touch the box of cornstarch 😉 And just as suddenly, it became the correct consistency. It’s pretty much like regular play dough, just softer and stretchier.

It felt really nice but the conditioner’s flowery scent was pretty overpowering. I immediately thought of some shower gel I had with a honey/jasmine scent that wasn’t as strong, so I got that and mixed some of it with the next batch of cornstarch.

When I found out that the shower gel/cornstarch mix made a very similar dough to the original Ice Cream Dough, I wanted to try yet another liquid and got out some shampoo, just to see how it worked out mixed with cornstarch.

In the end, all three types of liquids mixed with cornstarch made very similar doughs. {In each case, the mixture became way too sticky for about a minute when I’d hit the correct proportions, and I just needed to keep mixing.}

While I was experimenting, I had the idea to put the doughs in the fridge – it was Ice Cream Dough, after all! The cold made the doughs quite firm quite quickly, and they lost their soft feel and their stretchiness, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

From left to right: Ice Cream Dough from shower gel dyed and scented with cocoa powder {even though the scent of the shower gel wasn’t very strong, it still masked much of the chocolate scent}, from shampoo, and from conditioner.

 

 
 
 

When I took the picture, the doughs had spent two days in plastic bags because we didn’t get around to using them any sooner, and they had already dried out slightly. They’d lost much of their stretchiness, and in their little bowls, I didn’t think they looked that much like ice cream anymore.

 

But as E played with them, there was no denying it. Doesn’t it look JUST like ice cream?! {I have a whole post about E’s Ice Cream Dough Sensory Play.} 

 

 

Tell me about your experience with Ice Cream Dough or a variation!

 

 

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