The 5 most delicious home experiments

Molec­u­lar gas­tron­o­my

Did you think that chem­istry and food don’t mix? These two sur­pris­ing ex­per­i­ments will show you how to make your own desserts from or­di­nary JUICE us­ing a chem­i­cal re­ac­tion! The se­cret lies in two safe ad­di­tives: cal­ci­um lac­tate and sodi­um al­gi­nate. The ex­per­i­ment in­volves dis­solv­ing sodi­um al­gi­nate in purees or liq­uid in­gre­di­ents. Cal­ci­um lac­tate and sodi­um al­gi­nate re­act to form a gel-like film of cal­ci­um al­gi­nate, while the in­sides of the “lol­lipop” or “spaghet­ti” stay liq­uid.

Sug­ar crys­tals

Kids will love this ex­per­i­ment! It’s the sim­plest way to grow your own crys­tals. You’ll just need sug­ar, wa­ter, and a lit­tle pa­tience.

Since more sug­ar can dis­solve in warm wa­ter than cold wa­ter, when our so­lu­tion be­gins to cool, the “ex­tra” sug­ar pre­cip­i­tates as beau­ti­ful crys­tals. To make large crys­tals, add a string for them to grow on! Just roll the strings in sug­ar syrup and dip them in sug­ar ahead of time. In two weeks, you’ll have grown your own rock can­dy.

Home­made soda

This ex­per­i­ment is great – not only are you learn­ing about chem­i­cal pro­cess­es, but you’re hand­some­ly re­ward­ed in the end with a cup of re­fresh­ing soda! Just pour a tea­spoon of bak­ing soda into a cup, then add sug­ar to taste and squeeze the juice from half a lemon. Add wa­ter – and your soda is ready! The fruit acids in lemon juice re­act with bak­ing soda to form car­bon diox­ide gas, which has a hard time dis­solv­ing in wa­ter and in­stead fil­ters out as lit­tle bub­bles. This makes our drink fizzy.

Green Eggs, but no ham!

How can we make a GREEN omelet while re­tain­ing a fresh, healthy taste? Just add… red cab­bage! Red cab­bage juice boasts a par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic – it con­tains an­tho­cyanins, which change col­ors de­pend­ing on the acid­i­ty of their en­vi­ron­ment. In neu­tral sur­round­ings, the juice is a red­dish pur­ple. But when added to a bowl of eggs, the egg whites’ al­ka­lin­i­ty caus­es the mix­ture to turn green. The al­ka­line en­vi­ron­ment doesn’t change when heat­ed, so the eggs stay green even when cooked.

While we’re on the sub­ject of break­fast – try the ul­ti­mate healthy home­made cot­tage cheese!

Put some milk on the burn­er, add cal­ci­um chlo­ride and heat 20 min­utes. Cow’s milk is a dis­per­sion sys­tem con­sist­ing of a sus­pen­sion of fat drops, sug­ar, and pro­teins in wa­ter, all con­nect­ed by min­er­al com­po­nents. When a co­ag­u­lant (such as cal­ci­um chlo­ride so­lu­tion) is added, the sys­tem’s bal­ance is up­end­ed and the pro­teins con­geal (co­ag­u­late), mak­ing cot­tage cheese.