Learn some fluffy and delicious chemistry by following this marshmallow recipe.
Safety: Use clean hands and equipment. Take care using hot water and electric beaters. Ask an adult for help.
There aren’t many ingredients to marshmallows, but each ingredient is key to making it all work.
Gelatine is made from collagen, a protein that also helps hold your bones, tendons and cartilage together. It’s really good at holding things together and staying flexible. Gelatine has a slightly different chemical structure so it melts just below your body temperature – which is why marshmallows melt in your mouth, but the cartilage in a nose does not!
The sugar gives a marshmallow its sweetness, and it helps thicken your mixture. It may also help the marshmallow trap and hold onto air bubbles.
Sugar is also important if you later want to toast your marshmallows over a campfire (with adult supervision). The brown colouring and caramel taste comes from sugar molecules breaking down and recombining into caramelans, caramelens and caramelins – no joke!
Air is the secret hidden ingredient. Air is softer and more squishable than water. That’s why marshmallows are more pillow-like than regular jelly!
This activity was first published in Double Helix magazine, Issue 21. Past issues of our magazine are available for purchase.
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