Monday, July 15, 2013

Summer Fun Day 51 - Moisture Sucking Marshmallows




We tried out a quick experiment from Loralee Leavitt's Candy Experiments, last night, for softening up a stale, dried up marshmallow by sealing it in a bag with a piece of fresh bread.

Apparently, the hydrophilic nature of the corn syrup in the marshmallow will cause it to absorb the water being evaporated from the bread in the bag.

My mother keeps a slice of bread in her brown sugar for pretty much the same reason, so I was fairly sure the experiment would work.  In fact, it worked too well.  By this morning, our marshmallow was not only re-moisturized, it was sticky.

Lucky for us Leavitt includes a follow up experiment for unstickying a marshmallow, on the very next page.

It's great to be a homeschooler.
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6 comments:

  1. PhyllisJuly 15, 2013 at 11:04 AM

    I didn't know that trick. Cool.

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  2. Natalie PlanetSmartyJuly 15, 2013 at 2:04 PM

    I didn't know about that either (or about a trick with brown sugar). Very interesting!

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  3. UnknownJuly 15, 2013 at 3:02 PM

    I have never heard about this author before- I will most definitely have to check her out!

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  4. TiciaJuly 15, 2013 at 5:29 PM

    I guess I need to be putting a piece of bread in my brown sugar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Christy KilloranJuly 16, 2013 at 11:41 AM

    That book looks fun!

    My mother always put a piece of bread in with fresh baked cookies to keep them soft.

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  6. LoraleeOctober 15, 2013 at 11:06 PM

    So glad you liked the experiment! I don't think I tried it with an old, dried up marshmallow, but I should have. Glad to know it worked.

    ReplyDelete

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