Cocoa Cloud Dough

I have been wanting to make cloud dough for a while now.  I first saw it on Childhood Beckons when they were comparing moon sand to cloud dough.  Then, I saw Inner Child Fun’s post about a Cloud Dough Ice Cream.  I knew it was time to make the cloud dough.  I wanted to color our cloud dough although I couldn’t find any pastels or even powdered tempera paint at the local store {we’re visiting my parents, and sadly, there are no craft stores are nearby}.  Inner Child Fun’s vanilla and strawberry ice cream cloud dough got me to thinking about chocolate.  Cocoa I have.  So Cocoa Cloud Dough it is!

 

Cloud Dough

I made a small batch of Cocoa Cloud Dough and a batch of  regular cloud dough.

Cloud dough is typically made with flour and baby oil.  I used 4 cups of flour. {I’ve honestly forgotten what kind of flour it is.  I believe it may be bread flour.  🙂  Regardless, it was some kind of bleached, white flour.}  I added 1/2 cup of baby oil.  Such wonderful smelling sensory play dough. {This, of course, should be a supervised activity. If your think your child may be tempted to eat the cloud dough, don’t make it with baby oil.}

Cocoa Cloud Dough

For the Cocoa Cloud Dough:

• I used 1 and 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour. {that’s the typical flour I buy and it’s a little more brown in color than bleached AP flour.  Also, who really needs bleached flour?  I don’t see the point.}
• To the flour, I added 1/2 cup cocoa. { Although if I made this again, I would try 1 3/4 cups flour and 1/4 cup cocoa because I think it would be fine to use less cocoa.}
• Then, I added 1/4 cup peanut oil.  {This way it is technically an edible dough.  Baby oil is not edible.  I also wanted to compare the texture of using peanut oil with baby oil.  I didn’t notice a difference.  You could use any type of vegetable oil you have on hand.  I used peanut because I had a lot of it and because I liked the smell better than the canola oil.  Not that you would be able to smell the oil after adding the cocoa!}

Aiden thoroughly enjoyed both kinds of cloud dough.  We played with it outside because I knew it would be hugely messy for us.  I am completely okay with messes.  Since we were at my parents house without my usual mess containing gear {a plastic drop cloth}, we went outside.  I will suggest play clothes because the cocoa will get everywhere.

I’m not sure what I expected the cloud dough to be like.  For some reason, I think I imagined it would be wetter and more like play dough or even clean mud {weird imagination, huh?}.  It’s not like really like play dough and it’s most certainly not like clean mud.  It’s very dry and yet super cool.  You can squeeze it together and it will take the shape of whatever just like play dough, but it is not stable like play dough.  It easily crumbles.  Aiden enjoyed squeezing the cloud dough into balls and then throwing the balls on the ground.  The cloud dough simply crumbles.  I suppose cloud dough acts similarly to wet sand, but it is not wet.  It really just feels like flour, but it sticks together and feels incredible.  Maybe that’s why it’s called cloud dough – it’s light and fluffy like a cloud.

There are so many ways to play with cloud dough, and I’m sure we’ll be exploring several.  For our first cloud dough experience, Aiden simply poured the cloud dough from one container to another using cups, spoons, bowls, and his hands.  He loved to “make it rain” {drop a handful of cloud dough from up high and watch it sprinkle the ground}.  He buried his hands and even his feet in the dough.  He really did treat it like sand.  Such fun.

We love play dough.  We play with the store bought kind, make homemade edible oatmeal play dough, and create things with salt dough.  We look forward to more play dough fun in the future!  Nurturestore, The Imagination Tree and Sun Hats and Wellie Boots are hosting a virtual play dough play date.  Pledge to try a new kind of play dough with your kids this week.

Have you taken the Play Dough Pledge yet?

Have you ever played with cloud dough?  What’s the next great play dough we need to try?

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