You know what I hate? A mug of hot chocolate or tea that gets cold before I can finish drinking it.
It seemed to me that hot chocolate topped with marshmallows stayed hot for a longer amount of time. Being the food science nerd that I am, I naturally wanted to test whether or not I was imagining it. And if I was right, I wanted to know why. We can all thank my food science & engineering degree for that one.
Materials:
Four identical mugs
3 cups of hot chocolate
Marshmallows
Instant-read candy thermometer
Timer
Method:
Heat the hot chocolate and divide evenly between the four mugs. Record the starting temperature. Measure the temperature by inserting the thermometer into the center of the hot chocolate. Be sure that the thermometer doesn’t touch the bottom or sides of the mug.
Leave one mug free of marshmallows as the control. In the second mug, put in a few marshmallows, so that about 1/2 of the hot chocolate surface is covered.
The third mug should receive just enough marshmallows to completely cover the surface of the drink.
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Top the final mug with enough marshmallows to create a double layer on top of the hot chocolate.
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Measure the temperature every 5 minutes.
Results:
In case there wasn’t enough evidence stacked against me as a food science nerd, I graphed out the temperatures over time. Clearly, the marshmallows make a difference. After 35 minutes, the mugs with marshmallows were all about 10 degrees warmer than the control.
Conclusion:
A. Only I would write a blog post in the form of a scientific experiment report.
B. Marshmallows really do keep your hot chocolate hot! The number of marshmallows doesn’t seem to make a huge difference, but the more of the hot chocolate surface that is covered, the better.
C. So go ahead, throw some marshmallows on top of your next mug of hot chocolate or cocoa. May I suggest some homemade chai-infused marshmallows?
This post is a part of Hot Chocolate Week. In case you missed the other posts in the series…
haaahaha. you are amazing for doing this.
This is great. I feel like you should be on Alton Brown’s show or something.
Chocolate and science – two of my favorite things. This blog post made me absolutely giddy.
I wonder what the thermal conductivity of close-packed marshmallows is.
Scientific proof that marshmallows are necessary! My problem is that I’m tempted to slurp down all the marshmallows first!
Ahh, I’ve been waiting almost two months for this post since you first told me you had done this at Heather’s back in December! I LOVE that you made a line graph out of it. That is awesome.
I’m a science nerd too – this is awesome!!
Nice. I always put hot water in my coffee up while my coffee brews so that the mug is not cold an my coffee stays hot longer. Maybe I should just start drinking it with marshmallows…
hahah you are so cute! I love your experiment…and I love marshmallows, too!!
I would have done the same exact thing!!
i love that you did this! and thanks for sharing your results.
As an engineer, I totally love this nerdy post!! And of course now I can justify putting marshmallows in my hot chocolate…ooo, I wonder how much heat marshmallow fluff keeps in?
I was going to suggest the same thing Ellie posted. To warm the mug with hot water before you put the hot chocolate in. Then the heat from the hot chocolate isn’t warming the mug.
This is too cool!! Or should I say hot? I won’t feel bad at all about loading up my next cup of hot chocolate with mallows! I feel bad for those who don’t- no marshmallows and cold hot chocolate! Bummer!