How to Make Your Own Edible Slime!

It’s easy to get lost watching slime videos. Seeing the mixture squashed and stretched looks incredibly satisfying. Even better, slime only requires a few ingredients, so it’s a great experiment for science parties. If you want to take it one step further then it’s even easier to make edible slime! Edible slime has all the squishy features of normal slime, but it’s the perfect afternoon snack when the kids are done playing. This edible slime experiment only requires a few simple ingredients and it can be done in an afternoon, so it’s perfect for kids of all ages (including parents).

What You’ll Need

Edible slime is incredibly simple and you only need a few common ingredients:

• ¼ cup tapioca flour
• ¼ cup tap water
• 1 tablespoon of caster sugar
• A few drops of food colour (optional)
• ¼ teaspoon citric acid (optional)
• Small saucepan and a mixing spoon

Tapioca flour and citric acid are both easy to find at your local supermarket. Citric acid is the ingredient that gets added to candy to give it a tart taste like real fruit, so it’s a great inclusion to improve the taste of the slime. Tapioca flour can be replaced with potato starch or corn flour, but the slime won’t be as stretchy.

Edible Slime Recipe

Making your DIY edible slime requires the use of a hot stove, so it should always be done with adult supervision. Once you’ve gathered a parent and your materials, it’s easy to make your slime:

1. Add the ingredients to a small saucepan. Add in a few drops of food colour and stir everything thoroughly to combine.
2. Place the saucepan over HIGH heat and stir the mixture constantly. It will start to bubble and thicken as the saucepan heats up.
3. Once the mixture starts thickening, reduce the heat to LOW. Continue stirring the slime until it turns transparent.
4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the slime to cool. The slime will be incredibly hot and it cannot be played with. To speed up the cooling process you can run the saucepan under cold tap water. If the slime becomes sticky then it can be rinsed in cold water.

Once the slime is cool it’s ready to be played with!

Related reading: DIY Science Projects For Kids To Do At Home

The Science Behind Edible Slime

Edible slime is one of the best experiments for science parties because it shows off a chemical reaction in real time! The secret of edible slime comes mostly from the tapioca flour. Tapioca flour is made from cassava root, which is kind of like potato. Tapioca flour made from cassava root is the best type of flour for this experiment because it’s a pure starch, and its starch granules have very long chains of glucose molecules.

When starch is mixed with room temperature water there’s no real reaction. The starch granules are impervious to water and won’t dissolve. While the water might turn cloudy, if you allowed the water to evaporate away, you’d be left with fresh tapioca flour once again. The reaction here actually happens between the water and starch when heat is applied. When a water and starch mixture is heated, the long chains of glucose molecules begin to break down and absorb the water. This causes the chains to lose their shape and become tangled with each other in a process called gelatinisation. If you add enough starch to the water, you can even create a thick slime-like substance!