Salt Dough Ornament Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the ratio for salt dough? ›

The salt dough recipe

You want a ratio of one part salt and two parts flour. For making just a few little salt dough creations with your kids, one cup salt and two cups flour should be enough. If you want to prepare more, just increase the number of cups proportionally.

Baking Salt Dough Ornaments

They are done when they are completely hard. If they start to brown then they are well done – and that's okay! Once completely hard take them out of the oven and let them cool completly.

The great thing about it is that the salt dough sculptures will harden if you leave them out to dry at room temperature. Depending on the size of the pieces, it will take 2 to 7 days to dry completely. Turn the pieces from time to time for faster drying. Oven dry the salt dough pieces.

Salt dough is susceptible to moisture, meaning it will pull any moisture from the surrounding air. This causes your projects to turn soggy or even crumble.

Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Add water, a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Knead dough for 10 minutes. Wrap and let rest for 20 minutes.

If you overcook them, they tend to bubble up. As everyone's dough will be mixed differently and microwaves have different levels of power, please keep an eye on your creations when they are cooking. Take them out to check their dryness – CAREFUL - THEY WILL BE HOT!

Place the salt dough on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and the firmly push down the hand, foot, key etc. to leave an imprint. Bake the salt dough in a preheat oven at 150°c / Gas Mark 2 for approximately 3 hours or until they are completely dry.

Dough that is too thin may crack around the edges and dough that is too thick will definitely bubble.

How Long do Salt Dough Ornaments Last? If you preserve your ornaments properly, salt dough can last for years. I have some dough ornaments from my childhood, so they would be at least 35 years old. They are still in great condition and there's been no disintegration whatsoever!

Do you paint salt dough ornaments before or after baking? ›

Place them in the pre-heated oven and bake until ornaments have hardened, about 2 hours depending on how thick your dough is. Baking time will vary depending on thickness of dough. Let ornaments cool completely and then paint them.

Roll out to a thickness of 1/8 inch; cut desired shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer dough shapes to ungreased cookie sheets; use a toothpick to make a hole in each ornament for hanging. Bake in the preheated oven until hard, about 1 hour, switching racks halfway through.

Sadly, it's unlikely that you can repair a salt dough piece to look like it did before, says crafter and longtime Martha Stewart Living contributor Silke Stoddard. Much like trying to repair a baked cookie—you can't go back to the dough the way it was unbaked.

Mod Podge.

It's important to seal your ornaments once they're dried, so that they don't absorb moisture from the air. Use Mod Podge (in matte) to seal the dough and give them a more finished look.

Just use acrylic paint to either add small details of color or paint the entire ornament. It is totally up to you! Kids absolutely love to paint salt dough decorations and you can let their imaginations run wild. If I were to paint my ornaments, I think that a little color inside the imprints would be perfect!

Salt provides flavor.

Generally, the correct amount of salt in bread dough is 1.8 to 2% of salt based on flour weight (that is, 1.8–2 pounds of salt per 100 pounds of flour). The lack of ability to coax fermentation flavor from bread sometimes causes the baker to use an excess of salt.

Most of the recipes call for 1 tsp of salt per 4 cups (480 grams) of flour. Fine table salt, sea salt or kosher salt can be used in bread recipes. Try not to use coarse salt as it takes longer to dissolve.

In bread baking the percentage of salt added that is considered normal, ranges from 1.8% to 2.2% of the total amount of flour, depending on the recipe and personal preference. Low salt contents can lead to bland loaves, anything over the 2.2% norm will likely be considered too salty.

Standard bread recipes use 2% of the four weight. A cup of bread flour weighs 120 grams so 2% would be 2.4 grams of salt.