Archive for December 13th, 2008

One of the things that never fails to amaze me about working with seniors is that they will be able to provide you with most every recipe, ingredient, song title, TV show anecdote, etc. you will ever need to recreate your childhood. Things that have long since been eliminated from any modern mom’s brain by the automatic ‘make room for more crazy day to day things I need to stuff my brain with to function on a daily basis’ stuff’delete mechanism . Things like the recipe for salt dough ornaments.

Just the other day I was reminiscing with one of my senior residents about those home made Christmas ornaments we used to make when I was little and how I lost the recipe to make them. And what do you know, the next day I found a lovely little card in my office mailbox with the handwritten recipe. These are the moments that remind me why I love what I do for a living.

So, for those of you out there who also have been hunting for the recipe (not that I couldn’t have just googled it … but that somehow doesn’t feel the same …..) here it is:

 Ingredients:

• 4 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of hot water
• Rolling pin
• Cookie cutters or cardboard templates
• Ribbon or raffia
• Clear acrylic varnish
• Acrylic paints (optional)
• Small brushes
• Toothpick, pencil or straw for creating hole in top of ornament

Directions:

Combine the water and salt in a bowl. Stir to dissolve some of the salt. Add the flour. Knead to form a dough. Roll the dough out to about ¼-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface.

Cut out the shapes using cookie cutters or by tracing around a cardboard template with a knife.

Pierce a hole in the top for threading with ribbon later.

Place the ornaments on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 300-degree F oven until dry. This will take about 50 minutes to an hour. The thicker the ornament, the longer it will take.

Remove the ornaments from the oven and cool.

Once cool they can be painted if desired. Varnish the ornament to help keep out moisture so the piece will last longer.

Thread a piece of ribbon through the hole and hang! Makes about 70 3-inch ornaments.