I have never made these before, and loved the ideas I saw here. We made ours today and I baked them at 200 degrees for at least three hours, but they are not completely hardened. Will they continue to harden out of the oven, or should I bake them some more?

Thanks!

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mine where still a little soft in the middle, so I have them on a cookie cooling rack. We did ours last Friday, and they seem to be drier now.

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wee made these last year and some of them just never seemed to set. they were soft and I did everything I could including sealing them.

But then some of the kids were perfectly hard.

Have you painted them already? I think maybe they got painted too soon????

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I ended up turning the temp up to 250 for the last Hour

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No, we have not painted them yet. We just did them this morning. The outer edges are pretty set, but the inner part is still a bit soft. Maybe I will stick them back in the oven for a bit - couldn't hurt, right?

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i think that is a good idea. I think my group painted them too soon. One of the mom's just told me that she took it out to put it on the tree this year and it was still soft....lol

Maybe increase the temp a little???

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Holy cow - I put those buggers back in the oven for another 1.5 hours, this time at 250 and they still are soft in the middle . I guess I will just let them dry over the weekend and we will paint them up next week.

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We made some last week and when I looked at them yesterday, 1/2 of them had cracked so we will be doing something else I guess. I'm thinking I didn't cook them long enough, but who knows.

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Sometimes they stay a little soft in the middle. It doesn't affect them at all. It also doesn't mean they will spoil. I have salt dough ornaments I made when I was a child and they look exactly the same.

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That's good to know - I've been having visions of the parents opening their Christmas boxes next year to the smell of something rancid .

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It's basically a recipe for thick glue with salt. The "glue" hardens in the oven like super thick paper mache. The salt will continue to wick out any moisture and act as a preservative.

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We did ours yesterday, some recipes I saw said to just let them sit out for some days, some said to cook. We cooked ours for maybe 3 hours at 250 and then they also sat out all night... they're still a wee bit soft, but mostly hard.

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I always bake ours at 200 degrees (any higher tends to brown the dough) for 5 hours. We make them from 8:30am-9am - they bake from 9am-2pm, I let them cool for a half hour, paint or decorate, let air dry for about 20 minutes and then seal with a quick-dry spray varnish and they're ready to send home at 4:30pm!

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I used half whole wheat flour, so mine were going to be brown anyways... plus they're going to get painted anyways, so who cares if they brown!

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I'm seriously impressed . I thought this would be a one day project, but it seems to be turning into a one week project instead.

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Wow! That's unreal. I have never had any issues. How thick are they? I roll my dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness before getting the kiddos to put their print in them. 5 hours baking is more than enough... I've never air-dried mine, I'd imagine that would take days for sure!

Keg: We don't paint ours. We leave them "dough colored" and then use clear glitter paint to paint the inside of the print to provide deifnition - I finish them off with a ribbon and jingle bell to hang on the tree.

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Actually they are not very thick at all, maybe 1/4" at the thickest part. I left them to dry all weekend on a rack and got them back out this afternoon to ready them for painting and they are still a bit soft in some places.

I had two kids that were out sick a couple of days last week, so I saved some of the dough and we made theirs on Friday. I baked those for four hours or so and they are completely dry and hard, so maybe my dough was too moist in the beginning.

We will be painting them tomorrow, whether they are dry or not .

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can I get the recipe you guys use for these??? I haven't had luck with many dough recipes before.

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I used 1 cup of flour, one cup of salt and approximately 1/2 cup of water, but as you can see mine took forever to dry, so maybe use a bit less water .

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I seem to be the only one not to know what you are talking about. Was there a pic I can't see? I must have missed something. What did you make?

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Mine's 1 cup salt, 2 cups flour and 1 cup luke warm water, Mix salt and flour, gradually add in water. Kneed for 3 minutes. Bake @ 200 for 1-6 hours depending on size/thickness of project, before painting.

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I just finished baking mine and here is what I did --

1 C flour
1/2 C salt
1/2 C water

Thoroughly mix salt and flour. Add water (mine was body temp), mix well. Knead till smooth and elastic. First cut outs I rolled aprox 1/8" thickness, 2nd cut outs were aprox 1/16" thick. Baked @ 250 for 2 hours, flipping them over half way.

They are almost cooled now, and we will paint them shortly. I only have fabric paint on hand, however, my google search resulted in people who use fabric paint in lieu of acrylic paint as fabric paint is just acrylic paint with an additive mixed in to make it flexible. We will see if the paint works....I don't want to drive 20miles to town just for special paint

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