Taste-Safe Coconut Cloud Dough Recipe to Make This Summer

Welcome to the last day of the Summer Play Days series! Earlier this week, I shared colorful shell sculptures and coconut water beads. Today I’ve got a coconut cloud dough recipe that the children looooooved!

I originally had something different to share today, but the kiddos went down a different path. They wanted to make “some of that pretend sand that’s fun to play with but isn’t really sand,” as my son phrased it!

That request, coupled with how much we all enjoyed the coconut water beads, led to this cloud dough.

Coconut Cloud Dough Recipe

I love this recipe, especially because it’s taste-safe. This is perfect for little ones who might still put things in their mouths sometimes. If that’s the case in your classroom or home, I’d suggest keeping the cloud dough out, but I wouldn’t put the smaller pieces in like we did.

Oh and the scent was just divine! I happen to love the smell of coconut, and it made me think of the beach the entire time we were making and playing with this.

Ingredients we used

White flour
Vegetable oil
Coconut extract
Whole coconut

Other Items We Incorporated

Tiny umbrellas
Sea glass
Large plastic bins
Sand toys
Scoops

How the Kids Played

To start everything off, the children and I taste-tested some fresh coconut.

Wait, back up . . . me cracking open a whole coconut started everything off! For tips on how to do just that, I’d suggest checking out this helpful video.

Once that was taken care of, we all tried some coconut. I already knew I liked it, but the kiddos weren’t too fond of it.

Next up, we shredded most of the “meat”, then we mixed up a batch of the coconut cloud dough recipe described below.

I dumped the cloud dough into a large bin, grabbed the rest of our supplies, and set everything up on our back porch.

Right away, they were feeling and scooping the cloud dough. They especially loved using the coconut shells to scoop, pour, and shape the dough.

The children built “sand castles”, decorated coconut bowls of dough with sea glass, and decorated with the tiny umbrellas. Engineer and Snoopy worked together to create a beach next.

They made up all kinds of stories about what they did at the beach! The younger kiddos kept busy transferring the dough between bins and pressing items into it.

After about an hour, the older boys’ beach scene had spread. We had to bring in reinforcements with a big batch of our play sand!

Another hour elapsed before the boys finally called it a day – after asking me three times, “can we do this again tomorrow?”

Then it was onto snacks – playing with cloud dough is hard work!

Coconut Cloud Dough Recipe

I made a large batch since I knew how much the children would love it –

1 five-pound bag of basic white flour
2 cups of vegetable oil
Coconut extract (I added about half the small bottle)
Fresh, shredded coconut

Have the kids help put everything into a large bowl and mix! I didn’t measure the coconut extract exactly, but aimed to give the dough a light scent.

For a smaller batch, the recipe would be 4 cups of flour mixed with 1/2 cup vegetable oil. Baby oil can be used in place of the vegetable oil if you’re not worried about the dough being taste-safe.