SMMARTideas

SMMART SCIENCE:

Firework Icecream

One of my daughters insists she made up "Firework Icecream".  It sounded like a lot of fun, so we buzzed to the store to get some poprocks.  This is a great JULY treat!

Sprinkle poprocks onto your favorite icecream.  RED-poprocks/ WHITE-vanilla icecream/ BLUE- use a blue bowl to serve your treat.

Why do those poprocks fizz and pop in your mouth?  "Here's the basic idea. Hard candy (like a lollypop or a Jolly Rancher) is made from sugar, corn syrup, water and flavoring. You heat the ingredients together and boil the mixture to drive off all of the water. Then you let the temperature rise. What you are left with is a pure sugar syrup at about 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). When it cools, you have hard candy.
To make Pop Rocks, the hot sugar mixture is allowed to mix with carbon dioxide gas at about 600 pounds per square inch (psi). The carbon dioxide gas forms tiny, 600-psi bubbles in the candy. Once it cools, you release the pressure and the candy shatters, but the pieces still contain the high-pressure bubbles (look at a piece with a magnifying glass to see the bubbles).
When you put the candy in your mouth, it melts (just like hard candy) and releases the bubbles with a loud POP! What you are hearing and feeling is the 600-psi carbon dioxide gas being released from each bubble." (http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/question114.htm)