what is cream of Tartar and why is it needed in play dough? the basics

Cream of tartar is something most people have never heard about or if they have it is something very boring looking in the back of their grandmas pantry that you cant eat when your starving coming home from school.

ok so i went on a hunt and found out some interesting stuff about this mysterious stuff. but before i go on if you can find it near where you live which i think is unlikely all is not lost...

so, from this site i learned that grapes are the only major natural source of tartaric acid. So, Cream of Tartar is a non toxic byproduct of the wine making industry. From the sound of it, the acid forms a layer on the inside of the wine barrels/ bottles which is scraped off and purified into cream of tartar

Cream of tartar does a few handy things in the kitchen. initially, it got famous when things like merangues and bomb alaska were super chic because it makes egg whites more stable and voluminous. it is also good at making a creamier texture in frosting/icing and sweet desserts because it stops the sugar crystals from forming.

ok, so after looking around A LOT more than i expected, i found very few concrete answers as to why you need cream of tartar in you playdough but i did find a lovely guy on this site that did a basic experiment by making play dough with the usual flour, salt, water, oil, colouring combo but then he added cream of tar tar to half the batch and left the other half without.

basically, the 2 doughs were both super fun and the kids loved it that day but the difference was noticed the next day...
about 24 hours later the cream of tartar recipe was fine and ready for another round but the other version had kinda collapsed and biodegraded into a sticky mud pie.

so to end in a very unscientific way..

cream of tartar is in the play dough to keep the dough pliable and non sticky for a longer time so you get more playtime for your cook time. which i think suits pretty much everyone!

having said that, if you just wanna play with playdough for a day and you dont have the cream of tar tar then no problem, live in the moment and chuck it out the next day....