Apple Pie Dough

Open ended fall recipe for play made from real apples and perfect for imaginative play.  My boys had a blast making apple pie dough and setting up a pretend bakery.

Fall Recipe for Play - Apple Pie Dough

We've been having fun creating fall recipes for play.  Over the past couple of weeks I've shared fall sticky paints, fall playdough, pumpkin spice latte Oobleck, fall finger paints, apple printing with erupting sidewalk chalk paint, and fall clean mud.  What do they all have in common?  They are all overflowing with the scents of fall.  To continue with the scented fall sensory fun I set up an invitation to play pretend bake shop with apple pie dough.

How to Make Apple Pie Playdough

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Ingredients for the base recipe:

• 3-5 cups flour
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup water

Directions:  Mix the ingredients together and play.  For maximum sensory play mix by hand.

My boys love making cloud dough, and I found a completely different sensory dough by just adding water to the mix.  Instead of the crumbly texture of cloud dough we have more of a stretchy dough, similar to bread dough.  This dough is perfect for pretend baking.

Ingredients to make it apple pie dough:

• cinnamon
• apples or apple flavor
• food coloring (optional)

Directions:  To make our apple pie dough I put about four cups of flour in a mixing bowl.  I combined the water, oil, cinnamon, green food coloring and two whole apples in the Vitamix and blended on high.  I poured the wet ingredients into the flour and mixed well.  We have an apple tree and therefore an abundance of apples.  If you prefer to skip using real apples, apple flavoring can easily be substituted.

When the apple pie dough was mixed and ready for play I set up an invitation to play pretend bake shop for JZ (6) and J-Bug (4).

Items included:

• measuring spoons
• measuring cups
• cake pans
• wooden spoons
• rolling pin
• mini muffin tin
• aprons (They designed their own from one of our Kiwi Crates last spring.)
• baking containers (Dollar Tree)
• small containers of oil, flour and cinnamon

They cracked me up by avoiding touching the dough for awhile.  Instead they manipulated it with the utensils.

*Tip* This is a very oily dough.  I recommend putting your children in play clothes or aprons, and choose their work surface with care.  Our wooden table washed easily with Dawn and warm water.  Here are my best laundry tips to avoid stains with messy play.

The consistency of this dough is super stretchy which makes it so much fun to play with and mold.  It's not sticky like homemade slime or silly putty.  Instead it is very soft, smooth and stretchy.  If you don't like the oily feel, you can use less oil or more flour.

It's a pretty fail proof recipe for play.  Exact measurements are not necessary.

Half of the fun was adding more flour, oil and cinnamon to the dough.

Both boys loved mixing and concocting the perfect dough.  I was the customer, and they took turns being the server and chef.

Eventually they gave up on the wooden spoons and began mixing the dough with their hands.  I loved hearing all the words they used to describe it:  soft, doughy, stretchy, squishy, and oily.

They made me some yummy apple muffins.

For more fall recipes for play follow me on Pinterest.

This base dough was easy to make and can be scented and colored for any season or occasion.  Store in an airtight container to extend the life of the dough.  We made ours three weeks ago, and it is still going strong.  In fact, as I was typing this up, J-Bug asked me if we could play with it again.  I put the post on hold while I set everything up.  The oil separates from the dough while being stored.  Add flour and mix with your hands to get the dough soft and stretchy again.  *Update* It did eventually start to smell, so we through it in the trash.

More fall recipes for play with apples:

Apple Scented Water Beads ~ Fall Playdough Recipe ~ Fall Sticky Paint Recipe