As I've blogged about in the past, every now and then I get to help out in ASF's prop department. Most recently, I had a "all I need to know I learned in kindergarten" type moment during an amazingly fun morning helping the props team make some fake food, using the kindergarten and crafting stand-by: salt dough. Not just for homemade ornaments or figures! Specifically, I made pies and tarts for a street vendor in our upcoming production of A Christmas Carol.
Salt dough is perfect for this kind of a project - although it isn't as pliable as an edible pastry dough, it is still very malleable and looks like - well - pastry! And if I can make reasonably realistic fake food - anybody can!
So: the basic salt dough recipe:
1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup warm water
Mix the salt and flour together in a large bowl, then add the water in parts, mixing it into the dry mixture until all the water is incorporated and it starts to form a ball. Continue to kneed the dough until it gets to the elasticity you need. Since this isn't something you're going to eat - if you over kneed it and it starts to dry out, adding some additional water isn't a big deal, or if on the other hand, the dough is too sticky. Just throw in a little more flour.
Once the dough is kneaded, you can store it for several days in a sealed container in the fridge, or use it immediately to bake whatever your heart desires. Two things I learned pretty quickly - if you're not using all of the dough at once, cover it with a cloth or wet paper towel so it doesn't start to dry out and get crusty. The other is, just like with real dough, cover your work area and tools (i.e. rolling pin) liberally with flour to keep your creations from sticking.
For our purposes, I made several pies - roughly the size of a frozen pot pie. As salt dough doesn't have fat in it, folding it in half to make "steam vents" didn't work as well as I liked, so instead I pressed the bottom crust into the tin, filled the pie, then put the top layer on and cut the vents individually.
From everything I've read, and from the experience of the props making gurus, Shanley Aumiller and Charles Kilian, thick salt dough takes for ever to dry out (or bake dry.) So our filling (rather than being more salt dough) is quite simply - saw dust - a by product that both the prop and scene shop have in excess.
Also, making sure that the layers are well sealed together is important - if they aren't "smuchsed" together with some extra water to seal them, they'll pop apart during baking, and the illusion of a happy pie is pretty much ruined.
To the right is a picture of two of my pies and a turnover after baking. The turnover and the pie in the center turned out well. The pie on the right - not so much. The top and bottom crust separated.
Most of the resources I've found on line, say you can "air dry" salt dough, but that drying it in the oven is better. With Alabama's humidity at between 70 and 80% - I'm thinking it would never dry! SO! Once the pies were formed and finished, we baked them at a low temp (200 deg.) oven on cookie sheets for about 4 hours until the dough was dry. Higher heat will burn the dough, and you want to make sure you get all the moisture out of the creation so they won't crack or sag.
I had so much fun with this, I did a little additional research on line about salt dough projects. Several sites suggested adding some additional ingredients: a few teaspoons of cream of tarter, a tablespoon of mineral or vegetable oil (to make the dough easier to knead,) a tablespoon of lemon juice (which reportedly makes the finished product harder,) or wallpaper paste (to improve the dough's elasticity.) I haven't tried any of these other option, though I'm interested in their possibilities!
For our project we didn't color the dough, but salt dough will take any variety of coloring medium - from food grade products like coffee, cocoa, and food coloring, to tempera powder and dyes. Dried dough takes acrylic paint well. You can also finish the dough with water or egg wash for a bit of a shine or smooth texture. For stage purposes, our pies were finished with amber shellac to give them both a fresh baked appearance, and also help them hold up to use.
The picture here is a pie from past baking sessions that our props folk did - finished with paint to make the filling "cherry" and the aforementioned amber shellac.
Fun with Fake Food
by Richelle Thompson
Nov 13, 2012
As I've blogged about in the past, every now and then I get to help out in ASF's prop department. Most recently, I had a "all I need to know I learned in kindergarten" type moment during an amazingly fun morning helping the props team make some fake food, using the kindergarten and crafting stand-by: salt dough.
Not just for homemade ornaments or figures! Specifically, I made pies and tarts for a street vendor in our upcoming production of A Christmas Carol.
Salt dough is perfect for this kind of a project - although it isn't as pliable as an edible pastry dough, it is still very malleable and looks like - well - pastry! And if I can make reasonably realistic fake food - anybody can!
So: the basic salt dough recipe:
Mix the salt and flour together in a large bowl, then add the water in parts, mixing it into the dry mixture until all the water is incorporated and it starts to form a ball. Continue to kneed the dough until it gets to the elasticity you need. Since this isn't something you're going to eat - if you over kneed it and it starts to dry out, adding some additional water isn't a big deal, or if on the other hand, the dough is too sticky. Just throw in a little more flour.
Once the dough is kneaded, you can store it for several days in a sealed container in the fridge, or use it immediately to bake whatever your heart desires. Two things I learned pretty quickly - if you're not using all of the dough at once, cover it with a cloth or wet paper towel so it doesn't start to dry out and get crusty. The other is, just like with real dough, cover your work area and tools (i.e. rolling pin) liberally with flour to keep your creations from sticking.
For our purposes, I made several pies - roughly the size of a frozen pot pie. As salt dough doesn't have fat in it, folding it in half to make "steam vents" didn't work as well as I liked, so instead I pressed the bottom crust into the tin, filled the pie, then put the top layer on and cut the vents individually.
From everything I've read, and from the experience of the props making gurus, Shanley Aumiller and Charles Kilian, thick salt dough takes for ever to dry out (or bake dry.) So our filling (rather than being more salt dough) is quite simply - saw dust - a by product that both the prop and scene shop have in excess.
Also, making sure that the layers are well sealed together is important - if they aren't "smuchsed" together with some extra water to seal them, they'll pop apart during baking, and the illusion of a happy pie is pretty much ruined.
To the right is a picture of two of my pies and a turnover after baking. The turnover and the pie in the center turned out well. The pie on the right - not so much. The top and bottom crust separated.
Most of the resources I've found on line, say you can "air dry" salt dough, but that drying it in the oven is better. With Alabama's humidity at between 70 and 80% - I'm thinking it would never dry! SO! Once the pies were formed and finished, we baked them at a low temp (200 deg.) oven on cookie sheets for about 4 hours until the dough was dry. Higher heat will burn the dough, and you want to make sure you get all the moisture out of the creation so they won't crack or sag.
I had so much fun with this, I did a little additional research on line about salt dough projects. Several sites suggested adding some additional ingredients: a few teaspoons of cream of tarter, a tablespoon of mineral or vegetable oil (to make the dough easier to knead,) a tablespoon of lemon juice (which reportedly makes the finished product harder,) or wallpaper paste (to improve the dough's elasticity.) I haven't tried any of these other option, though I'm interested in their possibilities!
For our project we didn't color the dough, but salt dough will take any variety of coloring medium - from food grade products like coffee, cocoa, and food coloring, to tempera powder and dyes. Dried dough takes acrylic paint well. You can also finish the dough with water or egg wash for a bit of a shine or smooth texture. For stage purposes, our pies were finished with amber shellac to give them both a fresh baked appearance, and also help them hold up to use.
The picture here is a pie from past baking sessions that our props folk did - finished with paint to make the filling "cherry" and the aforementioned amber shellac.
If only every project was as fun!
Until next time cats and kittens,
Cheers!