Natural Orange Playdough

We had been playing with the same home-made playdough for a LONG time (since our Playdough Spider back at Halloween!)  We finally had a chance to make new dough after our play dough nuts were left out to dry (I was Tico from Dora, a great way to get Chiquita to speak Spanish).

I got my basic stove top play dough recipe from "Feed Me, I'm Yours", a book full of great food and non-food recipes.  I've made scented dough a few times before, lavender, peppermint and lemon cloud dough, so I wanted to try a new scent - orange!  I little hiccup though - I couldn't find any yellow food coloring, just red.  Then I remember seeing natural play dough once (turns out is was at Sun Hats & Wellies) and thought I figure something out!

So I just made "white" play dough (no food coloring) and Chiquita and I zested a couple oranges into the dough, kneading it in.  Zesting was new for Chiquita and while I definitely made the bulk of the zest it was great for her to be involved in making the play dough.  The fresh orange smell is there for sure!  The dough didn't really turn orange colored, but it did turn yellow with little orange flecks.

I got out some orange colored cookie cutters for Chiquita to use to play with the dough.  I didn't tell her it was a color activity, but right away she asked to find more orange toys to use with the play dough!  We went on a scavenger hunt in her room and found a bunch more orange toys to add to the mix.