Hobbies And Interests
Melting
Different chocolates contain varying ingredients, including different amounts of cacao -- what makes chocolate chocolate -- cocoa butter and milk fat. This can affect the chocolate's melting point, making proper melting and subsequent cooling, called tempering, tricky. With adult supervision, heat different kinds of chocolate and record the temperatures at which they melt. You can also place different kinds of chocolates in different locations, such as a sunny window or a shady spot, and monitor their consistency.
Bloom
Bloom is the white film that sometimes appears on chocolate that hasn't been properly tempered. It's safe to eat; it's just the fat content coming to the surface after heated chocolate cools. For a science activity, and with adult supervision, heat different kinds of chocolate until they soften, then let them cool. Record how the bloom appears -- speed and quantity -- on the different kinds of chocolate. Compare your findings to the known fat contents of the chocolates.
Aroma
Few things are as alluring as the scent of chocolate, whether it's in a cup or a cookie. Experimenting with the aroma of chocolate involves volunteer noses -- friends, strangers or science fair judges. You'll need to quantify your results, so have a specific goal or hypothesis in mind. Have your volunteers smell different kinds of chocolate and guess which type -- milk, dark or white -- based on scent. Or have them express how different chocolate aromas make them feel.
Solidification
You can explore this in tandem with studying melting. Take liquid chocolate of different types and allow it to cool, recording any differences in solidification rate between the different kinds. Obviously, placing chocolate in a freezer produces quicker results than keeping it at room temperature, so try placing samples of each type in the same location to see which cools the fastest. Try to predict your results -- make a hypothesis -- and investigate what might have caused your results.