I’ve been seeing images of doily cookies floating around pinterest, which piqued my interest. I thought the technique would be perfect for baking soda clay ornaments and decided to give it try this past weekend. I love this easy-peasy dough for ornaments, made with just 3 ingredients: baking soda, cornstarch and water. I wrote it down in my recipe notebook a couple of years ago after finding it online. I could not locate the original post, which seems to have been removed, but I believe the recipe was created by The Woodside Kitchen. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’ve adapted it a bit and added some essential oils fitting for the holidays. I went with mix of orange and clove for this batch but others that would work well are cinnamon, balsam, spruce, cedar, peppermint or a blend of your own.
This is a great project to do with little ones. Iley thoroughly enjoyed making his hand print in the clay. A perfect gift for grandparents, me thinks! Seeing his little hand print brought me back to my childhood, and making ornaments every year. They become such keepsakes and I remember as my siblings and I grew older we would reminisce each year as we were decorating our tree about the hilarious stories surrounding such ornaments, I’m sure you all remember the macaroni Christmas trees, cupcake liner bells, egg carton thing-a-ma-bobs, and all that glitter gone wrong, way wrong. One Christmas during our college years, my sister’s friend was visiting, and she felt left out that she did not have an ornament on the tree so she sent one later on, with a baby photo surrounded by a tissue paper wreath.
Anyway, I’m hoping these will bring some of those same sentiments to Iley as he grows.
These make darling gift tags as well. You can inscribe notes on the back side using a toothpick or with stamps.
The clay will be quite fragile until completely dried through. After removing from the oven I let them sit in our drying room overnight, a warm dry place in your house would work fine.
Detailed recipe after the jump…
The Recipe:
Makes about 20 2″ round ornaments
Ingredients/Equipment:
1/2 Cup cornstarch + more for dusting
1 Cup baking soda
3/4 Cup water
10 drops each of sweet orange and clove bud essential oils
4 sheets of wax paper
old doily, crochet or lace remnants
2″ round cutter
toothpick
string for hanging (I used hemp twine)
Preheat oven to 175˚F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium sized pot whisk together cornstarch, baking soda and water. Over medium-low heat stir constantly with a spoon until mixture thickens and looks like smooth mashed potatoes, then remove from heat. Scoop dough into a bowl and cover with a damp towel or place into a lidded glass storage container until cool. Drop essential oils into dough and mix into dough with your hands.
Lay 2 pieces of wax paper down on your work surface and dust with cornstarch. Dump dough onto wax paper and dust with more cornstarch. Knead dough until smooth, adding more cornstarch if sticky. Form into a disc shape. Lay 2 more pieces of wax paper over dough and roll out to about 1/2″ thick. Peel back wax paper and lay your doily over the dough. Replace wax paper on top of doily and continue rolling to 1/4″ thickness. Remove wax paper and gently peel off the doily from the dough.
Cut as many 2″ rounds into the dough as you can and carefully transfer them to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Re-roll and cut dough until you’ve used it up. Use the flat end of a toothpick to make a hole big enough for the string/twine you are using. If you want to write or stamp anything on the underside, now is the time to do it. Carefully flip rounds over to inscribe, and then flip back over when done inscribing.
Bake on the middle rack for 1 hour, flipping each ornament over 1/2 way through cooking. Transfer ornaments to a cooling rack and let dry completely in a warm dry place, preferably overnight.
Tie a hanging string through each hole and your done!
I’d love to see your creations: tag photos of your ornaments with #fareislediy on instagram!
Merry Merry!
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