It's Christmas Eve and the final day of #ChemAdvent!

We're finishing off with Christmas pudding and why you shouldn't hide a coin in the mixture as was customary in the past 🪙

Day 23 of #ChemAdvent!

Prawns turn red-orange when cooked as the compound astaxanthin is revealed 🟠

Bells are fashioned from tin bronzes, with trace elements improving the material properties and sound 🔔

Guess the very tenuous, silly, and non-chemical connection that led me to pair these ones?

Keeping warm on day 22 of #ChemAdvent 🔥

Winter fire smells come from smoky syringol and guaiacols.

Herring under a fur coat doesn't actually involve a fur coat, but a layer of beetroot and vegetables over pickled herring

Terpenes unite the graphics for day 21 of #ChemAdvent

Menthol in candy canes is responsible for the cooling sensation in your mouth when you eat one ❄️

The muddy flavour of carp is dominated by the compound geosmin, another terpene 🐟

Some cracking chemistry for day 20 of #ChemAdvent!

First up are Christmas crackers, taking advantage of friction-sensitive silver fulminate to deliver a big bang 💥

For tamales, preventing cracking of the corn husk wrapping is the aim, so they're soaked in water to make them flexible 🌽

Mulled wine and tangyuan for day 19 of #ChemAdvent!

Both wine and tangyuan contain long, chainlike molecules. In wine, it's the polymeric tannins that influence astringency and mouthfeel.

In tangyuan, made from glutinous rice flour, branched chains of amylopectin make the rice sticky

Very contrasting smells for day 18 of #ChemAdvent!

Olibanic acid isomers contribute to the fragrance of Frankincense, traditionally associated with Christmas.

The aroma of hákarl, fermented Greenland shark, is a much less welcome one, dominated by ammonia and other pungent compounds.

Decorations and wrapping for day 17 of #ChemAdvent!

Baubles were traditionally silvered using the reduction of silver nitrate with glucose - a chemical test used in classrooms to detect aldehydes.

Wrapping paper and tape are both cellulose-based 🎁

For day 15 of #ChemAdvent, the most tenuous connection so far.

Deep-fried caterpillars are a Christmas delicacy in South Africa, and tinsel... kind of looks like a giant sparkly festive caterpillar?

Yeah, it's a stretch.