Candy Experiments

I was reading Parent’s magazine last month and they had a section called “Play With Your Food”. I flipped through it, not paying much attention until something at the bottom caught my eye - a rainbow made with Skittles. I liked the idea of this because it looked really fun, but mainly because I really like Skittles.

Here is how it works:

Take five cups and pour 2 tablespoons of water into each cup. Divide skittles among cups: 2 red, 4 orange, 6 yellow, 8 green, 10 purple. Skittle will dissolve in water. *I might warn you that this takes longer than you might expect. The directions say to heat if they are not dissolving fast enough. I found this to be a big mistake. Plan on it taking a good 2 hours to dissolve*

Once the skittles are all melted. A waxy film will develop on the top. Microwave for 5 seconds and stir.

Pour the purple liquid into a glass cup. Don’t use anything too big. Remember you are using 2 tablespoons of water. Next pour the green mixture. The instructions say to pour slowly over the back of a spoon. Again, this did not work for me. I used a medicine syringe and it worked perfectly. The idea is that the less dense liquids will float on top of the denser ones. Repeat with yellow, orange, and red, respectively.

And, viola! You have your own candy rainbow!

(should have found a cleaner glass!)

You can find this experiment plus many others here.

Or, if all else fails, do what my mom suggests and make a batch of cookies. Cut up all the Halloween chocolate, and throw it into the mix. Yummm…sounds scrumptious!