House & Garden: Got the crafting urge? Just dough it

Salt dough is a humble material many of us were introduced to in grade school.<br><br>Chances are you used it to make a cast of your little hand, but back then you probably didn't have a chance to

Friday, February 25th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Salt dough is a humble material many of us were introduced to in grade school.

Chances are you used it to make a cast of your little hand, but back then you probably didn't have a chance to fully explore salt dough's virtues.

This amazing stuff can be molded, shaped, rolled, textured, squeezed, cut, dyed and painted. After that, you bake it. The lovely cookie scent is a bonus.

All you need for salt dough crafts projects are flour, water, salt and imagination. But to improve efficiency, gather a large mixing bowl, rolling pin, cookie sheet and utility knife for fine detail work. Finished pieces can be colored with food dyes and watercolors or left a naturally variegated baked brown.

Here's what happens in technical terms, according to Shirley Corriher, author of CookWise (William Morrow Publishers; $25). Mix two parts flour, one part salt and one part water, then knead the glop to a pliable dough consistency. "Two proteins in the flour - glutenin and gliadin - bond with water and with each other, producing the springy elastic dough filled with bubbles we would commonly call bread. But add salt to the equation - which chemically draws the water out of the mix, releasing it to produce heat - and all those bubbles disappear, compressing what's left into a quite solid mass."

Salt dough baked in a microwave or conventional oven becomes something very much like plaster - practically hard enough to drill a hole into when thick, and durable enough to last for years when sealed.
Cookie-cutter style

The simplest projects shown here are cookie cutter ornaments. Think beyond holiday motifs. Martha By Mail, for instance, offers a wide assortment of cookie cutters - including dogs and cats, leaves, snowflakes, hearts and many other shapes crafted of display-worthy copper.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4 inch, cut out shapes, pop them into a microwave oven for about two minutes to firm the dough, then transfer them to a cookie sheet placed in a regular oven until the pieces are pleasantly browned.
If the ornaments are to be hung, poke a small hole into the top edge of each before baking, then, when finished, insert a squiggly hook made from a paper clip that has been bent with needle-nose pliers.

Decorative tiles

Ornamental tiles - whether square, round or an odd shape - are made in basically the same manner as smaller ornaments, though the dough should be much thicker (at least 3/4 inch) and baking times will be considerably longer, possibly as much as a day or two if slow baked at a temperature of about 200 F.

Incidentally, when the top surface is floured after rolling, the dough will hold the shape of virtually any item pressed into it, often retaining much of the detail; use utensils, jewelry, coins or anything else that will make an interesting pattern. Larger pieces - including the ship and urns - are deceptively simple; smaller pieces are made individually and then joined using the same flour/salt mixture watered down to the consistency of wood glue. Just brush it on both pieces to be joined, hold them together for a moment, then bake to permanently set the joint.

The ship may look like a daunting project, but broken down into manageable steps - box base, ship body, masts, details - even an inexperienced craftsperson could approximate the results. It was created by disassembling a Playmobil pirate ship, pressing dough into the various pieces (which served as molds), removing and baking each, then reassembling like a puzzle; the colors were achieved using washes of diluted paste food colors, mostly brown, red, copper and black. The base was measured and assembled according to the finished size of the ship; it's nothing more than four tiles "glued" together to form sides, then finished off with a top and base decorated with tiny soap mold stars.

The urns were created using plastic flowerpots, kitchen bowls and assorted plates as molds. They were accented with shapes made using widely available crafts store soap and candy molds. And the round hatboxes were fashioned using thick plastic storage boxes to create the shapes of the box and lids separately.

For pieces that can't be molded directly, a "negative" mold can be fashioned by pressing the item - such as a handle for an urn - into a piece of dough, then baking. After the baked piece is cooled, press a new piece of dough into this mold and you've created a reproduction (though somewhat rough) of the original object.

Some guidelines: Dough should be stiff yet pliable when mixed; items firm nicely in a microwave oven set on high, but should be baked in two- or three-minute intervals until ready to be removed from a plastic mold without sticking. Items left in a conventional oven too long will become brittle and weak if overbaked, so keep careful watch on a project's progress.

A few coats of a fast-drying water-based polyurethane applied after pieces are colored will preserve them, but they should not be subjected to water or rough handling.

Only practice will reveal the creative limits of salt dough in your hands, but we can promise this: No other project we've tried combines the best aspects of baking and crafts in such a user-friendly and inexpensive way.

Tips and tricks

The following suggestions may come in handy, though only practice with your particular tools will ensure consistently good results:

Pieces will shrink about 10 per cent while baking due to water loss. Plan accordingly.
If a bubbled surface texture won't matter or you like a rougher handcrafted look, bake items exclusively in a microwave oven. For pieces to closely retain their original cut-out shape, nuke the dough while in the mold to firm it, then remove it from the mold and transfer into conventional oven to slow bake.

Oven temperature should range from 150 to 225 F, depending on size, thickness and number of pieces being baked together. Thicker pieces can take up to two days to cure; if rushed with higher heat, a piece may develop major cracks. A plain metal, lightly floured baking sheet works best.

The larger the microwave oven, the better (smaller units seem to focus heat too much, easily burning pieces).

Any thick plastic mold or object labeled safe for microwave oven use probably can be used to create dough crafts. But to avoid melting plastic, only heat dough in mold in microwave oven until it will easily slip out, then transfer to cookie sheet in conventional oven. Using oven mitts or gloves for this process is strongly suggested to prevent burns or steam scalds.

After items are completely baked, dye with food colors diluted in water and applied with a brush. To dry colors, microwave for an additional minute or two, then set on counter to let cool.