The Implosive Science Behind Rice Krispies' 'Snap, Crackle, Pop'

Maybe you've enjoyed a few bowls of Rice Krispies in your life; maybe your only exposure to the cereal is in marshmallow treat form (where they unsurprisingly taste great deep fried). But we're willing to bet you know about its famous slogan anyway: "Snap, Crackle, Pop!" There's a reason the three elf mascots are named after those delightful bits of onomatopoeia (there was a fourth elf, Pow, which showed up briefly in the 1950s) — having your cereal talk back to you when soaked in milk is one heck of a selling point. But how, exactly, does it happen? It has to do with the way the rice grains change during the cooking process.

You see, when the grains of rice used to make Rice Krispies are steamed, they puff up into delicate, glassy little things, filled with pockets of air and miniature tunnels of starch. It's able to hold up pretty well until it's soaked in liquid (usually milk, seeing as you're eating cereal); once it's wet, the structural integrity is compromised, and the walls of the air bubbles rupture with that trademark snap, crackle, and/or pop. Think of it like popcorn in reverse: instead of causing a kernel of corn to explode and puff out, these grains of rice implode and collapse in on themselves.

So how does the puffing process change the crackleability of a grain of rice so that it becomes a Rice Krispie? (We've decided that "crackleability" is a word now, and you can't stop us.) It's a bit like how the glass-making process creates something that's sturdy and fragile at the same time. During puffing, heat causes moisture trapped inside the rice to quickly turn to steam — this expands the grain from the inside out –puffing up in that wonderfully enticing way. But this process also creates firm bonds on the molecular level – until the cereal is soaked in milk, anyway.

Rice Krispies were first sold by Kellogg's in 1928, and the "snap, crackle, pop" slogan turned up not too long afterward. But those iconic elves didn't make their first appearance until 1933, when they were first drawn by an illustrator named Vernon Grant. (Rice Krispies Treats weren't sold by the company until 1940, working off a recipe an employee devised for a Camp Fire Girls bake sale — but if you want yours nice and gooey at home, use corn syrup.) Nowadays, the bond between the Rice Krispies brand and those elves is as strong as the molecular bond that keeps the cereal crispy and crackleable.