On the last day of baking with Mrs Barnes instead of making biscuits we used our skills to create a 3D volcano, we used a coke bottle, tin foil, various colours of fondant and mentos.

We created two volcanoes and took them outside, we added the mentos and saw the reaction that was created.

Why does the explosion happen?

Although there are a few different theories around about how this experiment works, the most favoured reason is because of the combination of carbon dioxide in the Diet Coke and the little dimples found on Mentos candy pieces.

The thing that makes soda drinks bubbly is the carbon dioxide that is pumped in when they bottle the drink at the factory. It doesn’t get released from the liquid until you pour it into a glass and drink it, some also gets released when you open the lid. This means that there is a whole lot of carbon dioxide gas just waiting to escape the liquid in the form of bubbles.

Unfortunately our explosion didn’t beat the record of 9 metres but we still had fun.