melting marshmallows | cereal structures
This week’s assignment was definitely a tough one. Transmaterial was full of inspiration, but probably not of anything I could do in such limited time. After getting some advice from Amanda, I looked to food. Then, suddenly, while getting up on Saturday morning, I had the inspiration of using cereal foods for this project. Breakfast is usually the first meal. Then there’s the notion of breakfast in bed.
The first cereal that came to mind was one of my favorites, Frosted Mini Wheats. Out of all cereals, this one probably ranks up there in size of individual pieces:
Source: mine
A friend then suggested investigating marshmallows too
Source: mine
I will link you to my flickr and YouTube pages to see the many videos and pages of my explorations with gluing together FMW and melting marshmallows.
(Yes, now I realize that playing around with melted marshmallows is like playing around with the goo in Rice Krispy Treats)
Frosted Mini-Wheats
I call this “Breakfast Table”. I originally thought it would be cool to have a to-scale breakfast-in-table bed made out of mini-wheats. Then when I got to gluing the pieces together, I realized how it wasn’t feasible to do so given the nature of FMW and also that I didn’t have the patience. Rubber cement and Elmer’s Glue-All weren’t effective enough and took too long. I resorted to using a hot glue gun.
Because of the nature of the structure of each mini-wheat, there are variations in dimensions across the bits. Therefore, the surface area for adhesion is quite inconsistent. You could wet the grain so that it could conform, but then you lose strength of the mini-wheat.
With regards to the topic for the week, there is the idea that food can be represented as art or perhaps even functional objects. Irony is found in an object that is both the ends and means to a goal (eating in this case). I also though about using cereal (like Rice Krispies) as filling for pillows. I’m not sure how uncomfortable that would be. Maybe someone should try.
FMWs are strong but brittle.
Observations on marshmallows
Lack of water will start to brown or burn ‘mallow.
Five minutes after heating, will harden and become brittle.
Water will make it more gooey.
Freezing doesnt do much.
After heating, time constant is small, with hardening happening quickly.
Trying to use it as an adhesive doesnt work, but google “marshmallow adhesive” and see that something similar to ‘mallows are used for an edible adhesive for cereal bars
Future work for the curious
-Try different methods of melting marshmallows, i.e. old-school camp fire, steam, baking.
-Add corn starch or flour to reduce stickiness.
-Make your own marshmallow and vary the ingredients
Informational links
How cereal is made
How marshmallows are made
Make your own marshmallows