Most clear hard candy has what scientists call a glass structure. It’s a disorganized jumble of three kinds of sugar: glucose, fructose and sucrose, which can’t assemble into organized crystals, so it remains transparent when you melt the sugars together and allow them to re-harden.

I recently ran across this fun prank that uses food science to make realistic looking raw “eggs” that are actually hard candy using sugar, corn syrup and water. (Parental supervision required with hot, melted sugar.) Just put these candy “eggs” on the floor by the fridge, along with a few broken eggshells and Voila! Instructions for making candy raw eggs can be found here: Broken Egg Prank/Sucker : 3 Steps (with Pictures) – Instructables

You can also do a few fun tricks using polymers. Polymers, like the nitrocellulose in nail polish and the polyvinyl acetate in glue, are made up of long chains of molecules. (Imagine a necklace with repeating beads.) To make “spilled milk,” rub soap all over a flat piece of glass and then use glue to make a “spill” design. When the glue is dry, gently remove it from the glass using a knife or spatula. The glue polymer should stay somewhat flexible as it dries, so that it looks like spilled milk. Arrange it on someone’s computer keyboard to play a trick on them.

If you coat a bar of soap with nail polish and let it dry, the nail polish will form a thin layer of nitrocellulose (a polymer) that keeps the water away from the soap, so it can’t dissolve when your friends or family try to lather up. April Fools!