The Great Popcorn Experiment of 2015

Jonna and I were crafting together recently, brainstorming kid-friendly projects for me to share here and on Fun Family Crafts. We tried out a few ideas, but nothing was really inspiring me. Then Jonna had an intriguing question: 

What would happen if we used food color to dye popcorn kernels? Would they pop up in a rainbow of colors? 

I was skeptical. Dyeing the exterior of the kernel probably wouldn't color the starch inside. But this wasn't the first time I doubted one of Jonna's food color suggestions; the rice-dyed eggs were totally awesome. Dyeing popcorn kernels was definitely worth a try.

I put some blue gel food color and popcorn kernels in a small lidded container. (Gerber baby food containers, to be exact. They are great for so many uses. I hound all my friends with babies to save some for me.) I shook the container until the kernels were coated.

I let the kernels dry in the container overnight, then poured them onto some parchment paper so they could dry completely, in hopes that the extra drying time would prevent my popcorn popper from being permanently dyed blue.

 

The following day, I put the blue kernels into the popcorn popper and plugged it in. Steve and Trevor gathered to watch. We waited....

... and waited.

Doesn't it seem like a watched popcorn popper never pops?

Finally, the kernels started popping....

Would they be blue????

 

Nope. If you look carefully, you can see that the inside of each popped kernel is indeed blue and one kernel has a tiny misting of blue on the exterior. I assume that's because there must have been one kernel that wasn't 100% dry.

 

Darn. I really wanted this to work!