Pressure Cooker 365 Recipe #50: Shrinking Polystyrene Cup

It’s Day 50 of my Pressure Cooker 365. To celebrate this milestone I’m cooking something strange in my pressure cooker: Polystyrene!

Have you ever made shrinky dinks with foam plates and trays?  Polystyrene is made from little inflated plastic beads.  When heated, the beads deflate.  They harden again when cool.

I took a standard foam cup of the teacher’s lounge variety…

…and placed it on a steamer basket in my pressure cooker with 1 cup of water.  I locked the lid in place, cooked at full pressure for 10 minutes, and cooled the cooker immediately.

Ta da! It’s an espresso cup!

Just kidding. Although the sizing is perfect I am in no hurry to drink hot liquids out of this.  Plastic is creepy!

Although it does make for an interesting science experiment.  See the little beads?

Tomorrow we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming of food in the pressure cooker. Plastic can return to its role as craft supply.

On November 17, 2012 I married the love of my life and met a new love: My pressure cooker! To spread the love I’m using my pressure cooker every day and sharing the recipes on my blog.