They're Hatching! Easter Candy Destruction #2

Dark chocolate cadbury mini eggs with their crunchy sugar shells are one of the few experiment candies I actually eat. That's why these test subjects are the milk chocolate pastels!

We heated the eggs in a low oven. After several minutes, the chocolate expanded and cracked the sugar shell, as if little birds were wriggling their way out.



Fun fact: after they cool down, sometimes the cracks close and reseal

Try this with peanut M&M's too!

They're Hatching! Easter candy destruction #1

Easter candy eggs are so boring. They just sit there...until you make them hatch!

When microwaved, this Cadbury egg cracked open, letting the filling spill out into a puddle. Since microwaves work by making water molecules vibrate and heat up, the water-based fondant filling might heat up faster than the chocolate, which is why the fondant melts its way through before the entire shell collapses.



As the filling cools down after cooking, it hardens, so that instead of a sticky liquid it becomes a soft pasty candy that you can pick up (and eat if you really want to).

Clamshell Skittles

Here's a video (not mine) of two different candy experiments: Clamshell Skittles and Expanding Candy. Fast forward until the middle to see the Skittles in action.

I loved the clamshell skittles because if you microwave them on medium or low, they really crack in half, and gulp like clams.