Magic Shell

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Exerpt from an Email from Gerald to Danielle:

Pour on the magic ... and the fun ... with Smucker's Magic Shell Topping. This topping magically freezes in seconds on your ice cream to create a candy-coated topping that can be broken and mixed right in with the ice cream. It's a topping that's fun to make ... and fun to break!

what did you expect - spontaneous freezing at room temperature??..

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Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I expected. Being the sheltered person that I am, I had never heard of Smucker’s Magic Shell Topping. I’ve never even seen a commercial for it on television. So when I tried using it on some strawberries a few days ago, it’s no surprise that I was thoroughly confused.

After preparing my strawberries, I was ready to pour on the magic shell. On the front of the bottle, there’s a little sticker that says “Freezes in seconds!” and directs the user to see the back for instructions. I turn it over to the back. The only directions I could find read:

"Magic Shell works best when SHAKEN VERY WELL! TURN BOTTLE UPSIDE DOWN AND SHAKE WELL FOR AT LEAST 30 SECONDS! If Magic Shell does not flow easily from the bottle, run bottle under hot tap water until liquid (2 minutes), shaking occasionally. DO NOT REFRIGERATE. If refrigerated or stored in a cool place, Magic Shell will harden. Store at room temperature."

Nowhere in there does it mention freezing. You'd think that with all those capitalized letters, that they would bother mentioning that fact. So I figured that the stuff was magic, and would freeze by itself – wasn’t that the whole point of its gimmick? Freezes in seconds?

I poured the magic shell all over my strawberries and thought I would see a miraculous transformation in the next few seconds. Much to my disappointment, nothing happened. The chocolate looked just as syrupy as it had when I first poured it out of the bottle. I gave up waiting since it seemed like nothing was going to happen, and I started eating the strawberries with chocolate syrup dripping all over them.

Edwin joined me in the kitchen and I tell him that the magic shell stuff is bogus and doesn’t work.

“Really?” he asked. He reached for the bottle and started reading the directions.
“Yeah, and I followed the directions. Shook the bottle 20 times and everything,” I said.
“And it still looks like this even after you put it in the freezer?” he asked.

Now, wait just a second. The directions never said anything about a freezer. Apparently, I mistook “freezes in seconds” to mean “hardens in seconds.” How was I supposed to know to put the stuff in the freezer? The stuff says it’s MAGIC!

I was in such disbelief that I picked up the phone and called Gerald. All I got was “Of course you have to put it in the freezer! Did you think it was going to freeze on its own?”

I put what's left of the strawberries and chocolate into the freezer, and lo and behold, the chocolate froze.

Boy, do I feel sheepish. Lesson learned. Next time something says it “freezes” it really means that I need to do the freezing.