There have been some exciting advances in the field of Peep Research. These can be witnessed at:
(Be sure to check out the Medical Miracles and Smoking links.)
But as with all progress, there are always those that try to stop it. The activist group against this research is:
Alas, the Twinkie Research Project doesn’t look like it’s published anything new in four years 
I have to admit that I’m always very proud of the way Peeps do their own research in the library,
There appear to be a few gaping holes in the annals of peep research.
coughmicrowavecough
I’ve done some research on the topic on my own, thanks. Just last Easter, in fact.My day began, as Easter often does, with the construction of a fire. Spring barbecues are a regular tradition in the Wang-Ka household, and Easter in particular, because everyone and their dog is outdoors, and this being Texas, no few folks in the neighborhhood choose to fire up the charcoal cookers and gas grills, and if I don’t get out and cremate some meat, the smell of OTHER people doing so just makes me nuts. Especially the steaks…
My family, understanding souls that they are, are okay with this, and we normally stock up on various barbecue supplements before Easter Sunday. They’re not stupid, either – it’s good food, they don’t have to cook it, and cleanup consists of throwing all the plates and utensils into the fire. Would YOU object?
So we stocked up for Easter. Last year, since we’d barbecued sausage the previous weekend, we couldn’t decide – chicken breasts, or salmon steaks? What the hell, let’s do both. We also loaded up on the other Easter necessities – Cadbury eggs, marshmallow Peeps, plastic exploding bunnies, a toy pig that craps jellybeans, little robot chickens that play music and do the Chicken Dance when you squeeze their genitals, and so on.
So I got up, showered, shaved, and began the firebuilding ritual. Within a few minutes, I had a cheerful blaze going – good enough to get the logs down to ashes by the time the family would be getting hungry… but too fiery to cook anything for quite some time yet.
That’s when I realized I was hungry. No breakfast. What to do?
I went into the kitchen… and realized that since it was Sunday, I could get into the Easter stuff. I opened the bag. Sure enough, the Cadbury eggs were there… and the Peeps.
Fire. Peeps. Hm…
I took the Peeps outside with me. This year, we’d gotten the ones shaped like little purple bunnies. Experimentally, I stuck one onto a barbecue fork and held it over the fire. Within a few minutes, the wife and child had noticed that something was going on on the front deck, and came out to see what I was up to.
We experimented with fire and Peeps for quite some time. What follows are the results of these investigations.
It is important to note that Peeps are made almost entirely out of sugar. Table sugar, sucrose, is a long-chained polycarbon molecule, whose chemistry isn’t all that much different from charcoal. This means that it will burn rather nicely. Glycerine and air are the other main ingredients in marshmallows, and those burn pretty good, too. Molten marshmallow is an excellent fire accelerant, and I think, with further experimentation, we could actually determine weapons and defense potential in the things…
The exterior skin of a Peep is really nothing more than marshmallow, heated slightly, sprayed with food dye, and rolled in granulated sugar. When exposed to extreme heat, the sugar begins to melt and fuse; if it gets hot enough, it will ignite. If left to warm for a few seconds, it may be removed from the actual Peep and consumed, and is quite delicious. If left to warm much longer, it achieves a molten state (approximately 500-600 degrees F) which will burn the unholy f*ck out of your skin if you touch it. What’s worse is that in its molten state, it acts as an adhesive. We’re talking sugar napalm here. It will immediately adhere to exposed skin and transmit ALL its heat directly into your fingertips, and CANNOT be removed, short of scraping it off. When you do this, you may well find that you’re taking the top few layers of flesh with it. Eat them carefully. The Peeps, that is, not the flesh.
This quality of roasted Peeps has come, in this household, to be referred to as “Peeps Revenge”.
If a purple bunny Peep falls off your barbecue fork into the flames, it’s kind of compulsive to watch. The outer skin darkens to a deep mauve as the sugar crystallizes and becomes molten. All painted features (eyes, whiskers) disappear. The bunny gets larger and larger, splitting its skin as it swells, and suddenly liquifies into a swirly white and purple puddle with bunny ears. A few seconds later, the puddle will begin to boil, and shortly after this, it will burst into flames, changing seconds later to a blackened cinder. The Kid thought this was incredibly cool. My wife, on the other hand, was almost sick.
Do NOT give a hot Peep to a cat. For that matter, don’t give a warm or cold Peep to a cat. Something about Peeps just freaks cats RIGHT the hell out. A warm or hot Peep will wind up plastered all over a berserk cat, and a cold Peep might become a kitty toy covered with lint when all the sugar has been licked off.
Peeps can be made into excellent S’mores, assuming chocolate and graham crackers are available. I recommend the use of the miniature Cadbury eggs. Simply remove them from their foil wrappings, smush slightly onto a half graham cracker (to prevent its rolling away), then roast a Peep as described earlier, carefully, and when the outer skin darkens, indicating that the sugar skin has become molten, simply slap it onto the smushed egg and cover immediately with the other half of the graham cracker. DO NOT EAT IT YET, unless you enjoy the sensation of having your mucous membranes seared clean with a blowtorch. Let the sugar skin recrystallize as it transmits its volcanic heat directly into the Cadbury egg, which will liquefy as it is sealed inside the cooling Peep. This should take no more than ten seconds or so. You can test it by gently trying to lift the upper cracker off the sandwich. If the entire sandwich comes with it, it’s ready and safe to eat.
By unanimous agreement of the clan, any S’more which requires the incineration of a purple bunny Peep to come into being is to be referred to as “Hasenpfeffer”, in honor of the purple bunny’s noble sacrifice.
Now you can make your own Peeps, courtesy of the Wham-O Company.
Hey, where can I get ME one of those?
I saw the Peeps kit in a K-Mart in the Boston area. Whether they’re distributed nationwide, I don’t know.
I’ve done some, but I didn’t take notes and it’s been a couple years. I seem to remember that between 15 and 30 seconds on full power is optimal; any longer and the Peep hardens too quickly once removed from the oven to be enjoyable.
The inevitable effect, of course, is that the air within the Peeps heats up, creating localized areas of high pressure as the excited gas atoms knock against the more solid sucrose/glycerine mixture and pushes it outward. The Peeps thus are compelled to expand to roughly twice their original size, and will then begin to shrink as the heated air finally ruptures the outer sucrose shell and escapes.
Should your Peep begin to do this, cut the power immediately as you’re heading into the dangerous “way too crunchy and hot” zone.
Properly irradiated Peeps will retain their expanded shape for less than a minute, but that is more than enough time to stab it with a fork and shove the whole thing into your mouth. They’re nowhere near as hot as the roasted Peeps but it pays to be careful.
Finally, no Peep can be considered properly microwaved unless at the moment of its removal from the oven, you say “Giant Peep!” and then give the Peep the most genetically-engineered Hulk-like voice you can muster, allowing it to utter “PEEP!” before consumption.
Not to be outdone, the Bunnies have applied research of their own. Is this the beginning of a Peep/Bunny arms race?
I tried to take a bite out a burning peep once and it got stuck under my nose. Took weeks for the burns to heal, not to mention the pain of explaining how I set my nose on fire with a burning marshmallow…
I feel your pain.
I learned the information firsthand, while attempting to remove the Peep from the barbecue fork. We often roast marshmallows this way, and removing the hot marshmallow is no big deal; the outer skin is toasted firm, while the inside is hot and melty. You just grasp the marshmallow and tug it off the fork.
I did this with a molten Peep, and seared the tips of three fingers badly enough to blister almost instantly.
Wasn’t kidding.
<Reads post>
cackles
<Reads username>
cackles some more
