Now, if you say the word “summer”, something immediately pops up in my mind: Summer desserts. Ok, ok I know that you can have desserts anytime in the entire year but something about summer desserts just makes me excited. I used to enjoy desserts just by it’s taste but after I learned the science of desserts, I am more obsessed with them because it’s so interesting. Now I’ll stop discussing my love about desserts and move on to the facts. There are tons of delicious summer desserts, but I will only discuss 3 of them.

First, I’ll talk about slushies, a type of beverage made of flavored ice and a drink, commonly soda, It’s like granitas but with a more liquid composition. Slushies are in a small ice form, so you spin it around, so it doesn’t stick together. How do you make it you ask? Water freezes at 0 °C but sometimes water doesn’t freeze at that point. If you change the water’s temperature slowly, the molecules forming water changes based on the temperature change helping it to arrange and changes it to the form of gas, liquid and solid. But if the temperature changes suddenly the molecules can’t follow the change of the temperature, so it stays in the form of the first molecule arrangement(liquid). This status is called “super-cooled state” (A super cool name!). The super-cooled state’s liquid form is quite unstable, so it tries to change into a solid form. That’s why the super-cooled state liquids freeze quickly if they get a vibration or a shock. Slushie’s are made because super-cooled state liquids get a shock the water molecules get arranged again, they freeze very quickly. Since I’m craving slushies and you may too, I’ll give you recipe to make slushies out of soda! (Read it in a magazine) First, prepare a soda that isn’t opened and shake it to increase the pressure. If you freeze it for 2~3 hours, it’ll turn into a super-cooled state. After you take it out, open the bottle cap a little to lower the pressure, close it again and shake the dink again, that’ll make it freeze quickly. Now, you’ve got a slushie with tiny ice bites. (YUM!) Enjoy!

Now that we talked about slushies, let’s move on to bingsu(빙수)an Korean dessert. What is bingsu you ask? Well, it’s a dish where you crush the ice and pour sweet toppings like syrup. The history of bingsu is quite long but this form of bingsu was started from the 1800’s. I’ve always wondered, “Why does the ice have to melt so quickly? I don’t want water with syrup and strawberries.” But this dessert comes to the rescue. Snow Bingsu! It’s made of thin ice, so its ice doesn’t melt as quickly. That’s thanks to the small particles of the ice. All substances are so small that we can’t see it with our bare eyes. The small granules that the substances are made of are called “molecules” (Remember?) The arrangement of molecules differs depending on the state of matter. The higher the temperature, the more active the molecules are, and the material changes from solid to liquid and from liquid to gas. (If it is confusing that’s normal because even, I am confused right now, but it’s super interesting, isn’t it?) The reason ice melts into water in the air is because the sound absorbs the heat energy from the air, and the molecules move more vigorously. At this time, the regularly arranged molecules are disturbed, and the solid ice turns into liquid water droplets. The water droplets that have turned into liquid stick to the surface of the ice and quickly transfer heat energy from the air to the ice. However, since it is difficult for these water droplets to form or stick to small ice particles like Snowflake bingsu it melts more slowly than large ice. By now, you may also be craving bingsu but you can’t make it at home without making a colossal mess so you should buy it. I suggest apple mango cheese bingsu or red bean bingsu (Classic). 

Time for the last dessert! Now that we have discussed heavy, cold desserts time for drinks! A Japanese apricot drink is not only delicious, but it also helps your digestion! You can pour hot water in the Japanese apricot liquid to make hot tea, you can pour ice water to make a cold, refreshing Japanese apricot juice and lastly, you can pour sparkling water to make a Japanese apricot Ade! (Diversity, am I right?) Now let’s discuss the science of it. Let’s say I put only plums and sugar without water, and how does all the sugar melt to make Japanese apricots juice you ask?? That's because of "osmosis". Osmotic osmosis means that when solutions of different concentrations are placed across a membrane that allows substances to pass through, the solution with the lower concentration moves to the higher concentration. Water molecules keep moving until the concentrations of the two solutions are equal. About 80% of the fruit of a Japanese apricots is the flesh, and 85% of the fruit is water. Water is contained in the cell membrane of Japanese apricots cells. If you put Japanese apricots s in sugar, osmosis occurs because the concentration of the outside (sugar side) of the plums is higher than the inside of the plums. So, the water (water molecules) in the plum cells moves to the sugar with higher concentration. As a result, the plums from which the moisture has escaped become squishy, ​​and the sugar that has escaped from the Japanese apricots melts to make Japanese apricot juice. How about you try a Japanese apricots juice or Ade on a hot summer day where you ate too much? Taste and digestion, what more could you want though?

 I’ve discussed 3 summer desserts and its cool scientific logic. Which dessert would you like to try? If you tried one of those, what do you think now that you know the science of it? Desserts help us keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter. After all, the backward spelling of desserts is stressed! You crave desserts when your stressed! (Get it?) Desserts might be a small thing but it leaves a huge happiness.