Bread Goo

Make and paint fun shapes and animals with this ooey gooey material!

I remember making this gooey dough with my grandmother when I was a little girl. I didn’t know the chemistry behind the sticky, gooey dough, but I really like playing with it! Grandma and I formed our Bread Goo into pretty flowers and leaves and glued them to cards when they dried. See what you can make!

Here’s the chemistry part:

White bread is made with flour made from kernels of wheat that have had the outer layer of bran and the embryo or wheat germ removed. What’s left is a starch called the endosperm. Starch is a good thickener. The problem is that the starch and the glue have a hard time mixing together. They need an emulsifier to help them mix. The dish soap works as an emulsifier. The starch, glue and dish soap mixed together are called an emulsion. The water thins the glue so that it is easier to mix. As the water evaporates, the Bread Goo becomes dry and hard.

MATERIALS:

  • White bread
  • Elmer’s Glue
  • Dish soap
  • Bowl
  • Spoon
  • Measuring cups and spoons
  • Food coloring or paints

Do this:

  1. Remove the crust from 7 pieces of white bread. Feed the crust to the birds.
  2. Break the bread into small pieces and put them into a bowl.
  3. Add 7 teaspoons of Elmer’s glue to the bread in the bowl.
  4. Add 2 teaspoons of water to the bread and glue in the bowl.
  5. Add about ½ teaspoon of dish soap to the bowl.
  6. Stir with a spoon and then knead it with your fingers until the Bread Goo is nice and thick and smooth all over.
  7. To color the Bread Goo, separate the Bread Goo into as many small balls as you want separate colors.
  8. Make a small indentation in the small ball and place 1-2 drops of food coloring into the indentation.
  9. Knead the Bread Goo to mix the color into the dough. WARNING: Food coloring may temporarily stain skin. Use a spoon if having dyed fingers is a bad thing at your house.
  10. Form your Bread Goo into birds, plants, flowers, monsters, dinosaurs; whatever you can imagine!

NOTE: Bread Goo can also be painted after it dries if working with the food coloring is a problem. WARNING: Do not eat Bread Goo!

Science Adapted from Pure Slime by Brian Rohrig. Idea from Grandma Carsten.