In my quest to Re-Purpose in 2013, I will be trying testing out some of the things I "pin" on Pinterest by using the things I have here at home.
First up is a salt dough recipe that I thought I pinned but it figures, the first project I make, I didn't actually pin. I just clicked over to Pinterest to find the pin I thought I pinned and DUH, there are probably 1.2 million different pins of this recipe, so let's just go for it. This is what I tried, what worked for me, and what didn't. The first 8 photos are marked with numbers.
Preheat Oven to 250 degrees.
Photo 1. Tools: bowl, measuring cup, rubber stamps, Exacto knife, Pampered Chef zigzag cutter thing, meat thermometer, waxed paper, rolling pin, cookie sheet.
Photo 2. Ingredients:
1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Salt
1/2 Warm Water
Photo 3. Spread out the waxed paper on a smooth surface and sprinkle with flour.
Photo 4. Mix dough together with spoon and then with hands, form a ball and place on waxed paper. Wash and DRY hands.
Photo 5. Roll out dough
Photo 6. Try cutting with Pampered chef zig zag thing and try using rubber stamps to emboss images and words into dough. Keyword: Try.
Photo 7. Try lifting cut and stamped dough off of waxed paper. Keyword: Fail.
Photo 8. Scrape off dough, replace waxed paper, re-flour waxed paper, form a new ball, roll out dough and start again.
Now we move to a closer step by step look at what I did and how I did it.
I decided I just wanted to make a heart. I do have a heart cookie cutter which would have been 10,000 times easier and quicker, but I wanted "my" shape of heart, so I tried cutting it with an Exacto knife.
IT DOESNT WORK
so I grabbed the Pizza Cutter. Cuts like a DREAM, but only in straight lines.
Start by cutting one diagnoal line to the right:
Then another diagonal line to the left (creating the bottom point of the heart)
Now form the top of the heart by cutting and manuvering the pizza cutter in several short turns until you get something that "resembles" a heart. (kinda like a 5-point turn: go forward, stop, backup a little, stop, go forward and turn a little, stop...)
Pull away excess dough and tadah, you have a sorta heart that now needs to be GENTLY shaped. (see a cookie cutter would have been easier)
I found that if I held the heart in my leaft hand and used the inside of my right pointer finger (curved to look like the top part of the heart) I could shape it nicely. Did you understand that? Curve your right pointer finger to form a Caption Hook, hook. See..that is the right top side of a heart...oh, nevermind, I think you'll get it.
Now take the meat thermometer and take the temperature of the dough.
Just kidding, I wanted to see if you were still reading. Really, place the heart on your baking surface (aka cookie sheet) and pierce a hole (or two) in the dough heart. Now this is optional, but if you have unpainted metal eyelets, place one in each hole. Use a toothpick to clear out any dough that is on the inside of the eyelet. (p.s. I mentioned using unpainted eyelets because I am not sure what the paint would do in the oven)
Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours. NOTE: I should have baked them longer. Maybe another 20 because mine is a teenie tiny soft in the middle, probably because it is a little thicker.
Dry Completly and then embellish.
Here is what I did:
Spray with Dylusions Postbox Red and dry with heat tool.
Using twine, thread through eyelets and around the top of a canning jar and smile.
This concludes the Pintested Project No. 1