Sunday, February 1, 2015

Mad Scientist Candy Lab - Melting Gummy Worms



This one really is just for fun.  I tagged it as a science project though, because if you really wanted to look hard, you could find some science - changes of matter, properties of polymers, and the like, along the way.  And, it all started with a Science Sunday post from Adventures in Mommydom, entitled "The Science Behind Jello".

Ticia's post was on my mind, when I was in the store, this week, looking for gummy hearts for the children. I was thinking through all her steps, and missteps in Jello making, and not finding any gummy candies at all, except for packages of gummy worms - which are not quite the same, when you want gummy hearts. Thinking about Ticia and her children mixing, and melting the gelatin, I started wondering if we could take the store bought gummy worms, melt them down, and remold them, ourselves, into hearts.


The younger girls thought it sounded like fun, and happily separated the worms by color, while I pulled out our candy molds (recycled from out Christmas advent calendars), heat resistant squeeze bottles, a large bowl, and the electric kettle.


The girls had the worms all divided up about the time the water started to boil.  They placed all of the pinkish-clear worm segments into one of the bottles, added the cap, left open...


 ...and I poured the water over the bottle for them...


...and they held it in the water for 10 minutes, watching an episode of Phineas and Ferb to pass the time (10 minutes can seem really long)...


...until the candy pieces were completely melted...


...and they could squeeze the goo out into a couple of the heart shaped squares of in our candy molds.


When we make homemade gummy candies, the gelatin sets up pretty quickly, and the candy always pops right out of the mold.  This candy stuck to our mold, even after it had spent about a half an hour in the freezer, and didn't want to come out.


The hearts looked pretty on the plate - much nicer than worms...


...but they were really...


...really...


...gooey.


It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but the children thought their gooey gummy hearts were fabulous, and just about perfect. So, we're counting it as a mad, candy lab, success.

5 comments:

Die fantastischen 5 said...

I guess the worms had carnauba wax on the outside and after melting it was inside... Very funny! :D

Ticia said...

Sounds like our gummies we attempted.

Oh, and after all that I washed my candy mold in the dishwasher because I wasn't thinking and melted it.

MaryAnne said...

I spent much of my childhood melting different candies, so I wasn't surprised that this didn't work - but it was a fun experiment!

I did make my own gummy candies as a kid - maybe I need to revisit that with my kids and add a post of my own to you and Ticia's attempts.

claireshomeeducation said...

Fun! They looked very pretty prior to attempting to eat them!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Fun try! I love your candy chemistry experiments (or would that be rather physics?)