Gingerbread Scented Salt Dough Recipe (2024)

Did you know that you can use spices in your salt dough recipe to give it a scent and colour?

Our favourite salt dough to make for Christmas decorations is to use the spices we use for our gingerbread men and houses. This colours the dough and once dry it still smells of gingerbread too.

So here we go our best Christmas gingerbread Salt Dough Recipe.

Gingerbread Salt Dough Ornament Recipe

Normally the recipe for salt dough only contains 3 ingredients – salt, flour and warm water.

But, by adding some ground spices you can transform it and take it to the next level.

Because the spices also add a little colour instead of fully painting the dried ornaments you could add finer details only with acrylic paints.

What I have found is that sometimes I need to add a little more water but add it gradually and only if the mixture is a little bit drier.

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Christmas Salt Dough Gingerbread Ingredients

• 1 cup Flour
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 cup Salt
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Check out our Salt Dough Gingerbread Men Ornaments for how we made them brown when dry without needing to paint them fully!

How to Make Gingerbread Salt Dough

1. In a bowl add the salt, flour and spices and combine.
2. Add the water (if you are colouring add this to the water now and mix) to the dried ingredients
3. Stir till a dough is formed.
4. Remove from the bowl and knead until smooth.

With the dough made you are now ready to create some scented Christmas decorations.

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Can you paint the Salt Dough Before Drying?

This is no as the dough is too soft and the colour will not take as well. Instead oven-dry the dough let cool and then paint afterwards.

You can also use the same spice mix with our quickest ever salt dough recipe and follow the instructions carefully in the post. This will reduce the drying time to 2 to 3 minutes it varies with your microwave.

It’s also possible to air dry these scented Christmas Tree Ornaments. Place them on the baking tray and then in a warm place. It will take a long time for them to dry – depending on the temperature it could be 2 days or more!

Ideas for Using this Gingerbread SAlt Dough Recipe

We’ve used this recipe in 2 crafts so far –

• Gingerbread man garland T at 3 years old threaded this to create a pattern and decoration for the house.
• With a little extra we were able to make the gingerbread salt dough darker and retain the colour once dried. Then made Gingerbread Men Ornaments.

More Christmas Salt Dough Recipes

Not everyone likes the smell of gingerbread so a great alternative to use is our cinnamon salt dough recipe.