Edible Fingerpaint

This is the perfect activity for the messy little artist at your house.

Not to mention easy, cheap and fun!

Edible Fingerpaint

Quick reference recipe can be found here.

5 1/2 Tbsp. sugar

3/4 c. cornstarch

3 c. cold water

food coloring

flavoring

Here's How:

Start by mixing your sugar and cornstarch together in a saucepan.

Over medium heat, add the water and whisk to combine.

Cook, stirring occassionally, until slightly thickened (do not overcook, you still want it runny).

It should look like this:

Next, decide how many colors you want and place that many bowls on a cookie sheet lined with ice cubes;

this will help cool it down quickly so it won't burn any little fingers...

Ration out the mixture.

Add food coloring and flavoring to each bowl.

You can do individual flavors for each color; ie: green = mint, or you can do them all the same.  I made mine all almond flavor.  You could also opt out of the flavor all together, but it won't be nearly as fun.

Now, mix them up...

By this time they should be cool enough (but still warm) to handle, so have at it:

The older ones preferred to paint with the spoons, but the 2 year olds got the idea.

This recipe makes more than enough for 4 kiddo's to make plenty of paintings.

Especially when one of them insists on simply spooning as much as possible onto the paper...

The younger kids lasted about 15 minutes.

The older ones couldn't get enough of it!

I would count on a good hour or so for them.

I stripped down the boys and put an apron on Rylie, but they were all suprisingly clean painters.

This was my first time making it and I was worried about staining.  Next time I won't take all the precautions.

It all cleaned up really nicely.

Another cool idea would be to let them paint a mural in the bath tub.

Next time...

The ones that weren't so heaved with paint that the paper literally dissolved turned out great!

Have fun!