With Easter coming up this might be a fun experiment to do with the kids. That is if you can make the chocolate last long enough to try it!

What you need:

• Chocolate (essential – ideally some dark and milk chocolate)

What to do:

• Pop a cube of chocolate in your mouth and suck it. Notice how long it takes for your to taste the chocolate.
• If doing with dark and milk chocolate then time how long it takes for you to taste a cube of each.

Tips/extra bits:

• To add another level to it then you could blindfold your child. Don’t tell them they are going to have chocolate but get them to suck the cube and see if they can recognise what it is. Am sure they will be pleased when they realise what it is!

The science bit

You can’t taste chocolate until it melts. Your body temperature heats up the chocolate quickly and so it melts in your mouth. Milk chocolate has more fast melting fat and less cocoa powder than dark chocolate. Cocoa powder makes the dark chocolate melt more slowly too. Therefore you should taste the milk chocolate faster than the dark chocolate.

Explaining it to children

You don’t taste the chocolate until it melts in your mouth. You help the chocolate melt because your body (or more specifically the inside of your mouth) is warm. The milk chocolate melts faster than the dark chocolate because they contain slightly different ingredients and so you can taste the milk chocolate faster than the dark chocolate.

(Yep we have a lot of photos of M eating ice cream! Eating cubes of chocolate is less photographable).

Experiment based on an activity from the fantastic Usborne Activities: 365 Science Activities book.