BlogHer and Crystal Light Water Way Challenge
Over at the Blogher Water Way Challenge group, some participants were discussing using Crystal Light to make popsicles. (And that there are pre-made Crystal Light popsicles available in some grocery stores.) Indeed, this is a fabulous idea, which made me think of both ice-cubes (mini popsicles, really) and jello.
I don't have any snazzy popsicle molds, but I do have some pretty cool (ha, get it?) ice-cube trays, such as stars and triangles. I thought it might be neat to make some little red stars that I could then put in cold water. (I used already-mixed Crystal Light and just poured it into the molds.) My hope was that the stars would stay red against "clear" water just long enough for me to snap a photo, but they melted extremely quickly. I am not sure whether the melting point was altered by the Crystal Light, or whether the stars just naturally melt faster. After all, the points of the stars create more surface area for the warmer water to act upon to melt, yes? And the stars are much smaller than regular-sized ice-cubes.
The triangles, however, are larger. But since I only filled the stars with Crystal Light today, the "stars versus triangles" or "ice made from Crystal Light versus water" experiment will have to wait until another day. For now, the verdict on the stars is that it is cute, but won't necessarily hold too long. Perhaps if the water was chilled prior to adding the ice, the effect could last long enough for the desired response from the kids.
After all, the Fourth of July is coming up, so it might be fun to have some red ice-cubes around.
The other project I did today was the red jello. I chose to put the Crystal Light powder in the gelatin after it had rested on top of plain water, just as I was mixing in the hot water. I imagine it would have worked fine if the water and powder had been mixed together prior to both heating and bonding with the gelatin. I'd not expect a good result if the Crystal Light and gelatin were added at the same time.
I used one packet of pomegranate lemonade, two cups of water, and 1/2 an ounce of unflavored gelatin. Ambitious people can put sliced fruit in the jello before it sets. Even more ambitious people can then do a multi-layer jello with other colors, plus cut out the jello using cookie cutters to create fun shapes.
I just used a knife, as my hierarchical-game-obsessed son remarked, "So knife beats jello, or jello beats knife?"
Jello beats knife in the event that I want to cut a perfectly-beautiful shape for the camera, because jello won't cooperate to separate where the knife wants to slice.
But knife beats jello overall. And tummy really beats jello. YUM! I've got to say that this Crystal Light jello was really, really tasty.
As for the actual Challenge - I had a single diet soda today. I also had two glasses of wine. Otherwise, I drank water with Crystal Light in varying amounts. I had a very diluted bottle first thing in the morning made from the last little bit of a packet I had opened yesterday. I then had the rest of the full-strength Crystal Light that I made for the ice-cubes. I diluted a bit of this later on in the day. Finally, I had plain water that had the Crystal Light ice-cubes in it, thus creating diluted Crystal Light.
Any other ideas of fun things I can do with Crystal Light? (Later on I'm going to try adding it to carbonated water!)
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* My introductory post to the Water Way Challenge - which links all the posts I've done while doing the Challenge, and includes my Challenge Widget to show how much water I've been drinking.
* Crystal Light Water Way Challenge official site
* Blogher's Water Way Challenge Group
* Crystal Light official site
