Here’s your daily dose of weird news: Cadbury Flake bars won’t melt in the microwave.

They won’t melt on a car roof in summer. They won’t even melt under a blow torch. “What is this alchemy?” we hear you cry. Gather round, it’s science time!

The ingredients used to make a Flake are milk, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, vegetable fats (palm, shea), emulsifier (E442) and flavourings. Standard elements you’ll find in just about every conventional chocolate bar.

The difference, however, between a conventional chocolate bar and the infallible Flake, is the make up. The signature crumbly texture of a Flake comes from the way the chocolate is tempered – the process of heating and cooling to achieve the desired texture.

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The Flake’s unique tempering process leads to the fat molecules bonding together with the sugar and the cocoa, rather than being evenly dispersed throughout the bar. More often than not, the desired outcome of tempering chocolate is to create a smooth and creamy mouthfeel, a glossy finish and a satisfying snap. The bad boy of the chocolate world, the Flake, throws convention to the wind.

In making a Flake, much more water is extracted from the chocolate than you’d find in say, a block of Top Deck. The dehydrated chocolate can then be cut, shattered, and pressed into a crumbly chocolate log ie. the Flake bar.

When the dehydrated chocolate is exposed to high temperatures, the result is a sugar burn rather than a melt. It is not until the dehydrated chocolate comes in contact with moisture – AKA your mouth – that the previously fused fat molecules can come together and begin their melting journey.

Once again, science saves the day.

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