Fast forward a few months, and now that I'm blogging, I read a ton of other blogs.  And I started noticing how much variation there was between microwave puffy paint recipes.  The recipe we've always used calls for baking powder, which can be a bit costly.  So I thought I'd set up a little experiment with S and see if we could tell which recipe was the best for making Microwave Puffy Paints!

I created four different mixtures.  The base of all of them was identical:  all-purpose flour with a dash of salt mixed with water.  I left one just as it was (green), added a teaspoon of baking powder to the light blue, two teaspoons of baking powder to the dark blue, and three teaspoons of baking powder to the purple.  I also added color to each so we could easily tell them apart.  (I used liquid watercolors, but you could also use food coloring.)

Then I had my fellow scientist make a straight line of each.

They were so pretty I had to take a picture, hahaha.

And here were our initial results (after 30 seconds in the microwave).  Because S is still small, she had a hard time making the amount of pressure in her squeeze constant, so the dark blue and purple lines were a bit wider than the other two.

  Just for ease of comparison, I created a set of more uniform lines.

For reference, purple has three teaspoons of baking powder, green has none, dark blue has 2 teaspoons, and light blue has 1 teaspoon.  After observing the visual differences, we had S do a squish test.

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Here's what we learned.  Yes, baking powder does make it puffier - but the amount by which it does is fairly negligible.  S was not able to tell a difference between any of them by sight, and said that possibly the purple felt a bit puffier - but even with that - she wasn't completely sure.  I also had my mom and my husband look and and touch each of the finished products.  At first they could not tell a difference either, but upon closer inspection they did note that the dark blue and purple were a bit puffier.  Our conclusion?  Add baking powder if you want to - but we felt like for the cost, it's not worth it.  You still will get quite a bit of puff without it.

So here's our new recipe for Microwave Puffy Paint:

Water

Baking Powder (optional!)

Liquid Watercolors or Food Coloring (optional)

When making a batch, you want to make sure you have a whisk on hand for the best results.  Slowly add water to your flour and salt mixture (I find that 1 cup of flour to around 1 cup water makes enough puffy paint for one child in one sitting).  Aim for a thick batter - like you would for muffins or pancakes.  It should pour, but not be runny.  There is a fair amount of forgiveness in this recipe - if it's too watery it will still work, it will just be less puffy.  The thicker you make it, the more definition the lines you squeeze will have.  Here's the most important part - whisk or mix until your mixture is FREE OF LUMPS.  Flour lumps will clog your squeeze bottles and frustrate your kiddo (I made the mistake of not whisking the first time I made this and S had such a hard time - boo!).  If you don't have a whisk, I'd recommend using a fork and allowing the mixture to sit for a few minutes between stirring.  I think this paint is most fun with squeeze bottles (if you don't have those, you could always try putting the paint in a ziploc bag with a small corner snipped off), but you can also use it as finger paint, or paint with brushes.

Once you are finished creating your masterpiece, just pop it in the microwave for around 30 seconds.  Small amounts of paint will need less time to cook (usually around 15 seconds) and large quantities of paint may need a minute or more in the microwave.  Once it's done cooking the steam and paint are HOT.  Please have an adult use care to move them (having them cool for five minutes in the microwave is a great course of action) and please have the adult check the temperature to make sure there are no hot spots before handing the finished product to a child.  Also, as the paint dries, it will pull up the edges of your paper.  We have found the most success with using cardstock paper or the thin cardboard from cereal (and other) boxes as we did here.  :)