“Cotton Candy Oh So Sweet
The Kind of Cotton I Like to Eat.”
Have you ever felt the taste of much sweetness in one bite! Have you ever felt the chill of big candy disappear when you take it into your mouth!
If you experienced so, then welcome into the world of floss! It is full of sweetness and eye-catchy charm that acquires a special place in our hearts.
One bite of this always transports us back to happy childhood memories. Cotton candy or candy floss has evolved from a small-town treat to a global phenomenon in the last 120 years. It has been bringing smiles to people’s faces since the late 1800s. It has become a staple of American culture over a century after its invention. Let’s find out how this castle of sweetness and fluffy candy is made!
Cotton Candy Ingredients
How this fluffy, sugary, glossy floss is made! Now let’s talk about the ingredients of this mesmerizing candy. Cotton candy is primarily composed of sugar. We can call them to floss sugar or cotton candy mix. The question may come to our mind what exactly Flossugar is? It’s simple: a mixture of flossing and sugar.
It’s made up of larger sugar granules that absorb color and taste better, resulting in a more cohesive product. From classic pink vanilla and blue raspberry to more gourmet flavors, Flossugar delivers the iconic look and taste that customers anticipate. It’s a matter of bit sad that the candy machine can only be used with floss sugar.
Do you want to know why! Peninsula Group, which rents out cotton candy machines, warned that other sugars could cause a heat-producing element to malfunction by clogging the filter or culminating in steep cotton candy. Ops! That’s a bit harsh, I guess. Another candy maker group gave some suggestions like “You can only use sugar that is beet sugar or 100% pure cane with no additives. “So we have to very careful to make our fairy floss without turning it ugly floss.
Cotton candy is one of the simplest and popular candy to enjoy. But exactly how do you make it? How Does a Cotton Candy Machine Work, Anyway? It’s time to break the points.
How to Work a cotton Candy Machine?
The exciting part is if you hold cotton candy in the air it gradually disappears. Can you guess why!
This section will tell that the candy makers are real artists. They need good command over the process and machine to make floss. Caramelizing sugar on a stovetop is a good comparison. The machine will start spinning and heating up.
To make the long strands of sugar floss, we will add some sugar, heating it up, and then pushed through the tiny holes made in the cylinder. I can help you by giving a summary that takes floss sugar, heating it, and waiting until it takes liquid form. Then push that liquid sugar through the holes in the compartment to make floss.
Just because cotton candy loves moisture so much, it absorbs it and again returns to its liquid form without a second thought. Poor sugar never gets the chance to re-crystallize as the syrup cools, resulting in a disorganized, amorphous solid. When you eat a massive poof of cotton candy, you’re eating the sugary equivalent of glass.
Related Article: How to Make Flavored Sugar for Cotton Candy (4 Easy Steps)
Using a Cotton Candy Machine
When I talk about the machine, I check whether the directions book is given. I am not so good at the machine. I hope you will do good.
So just follow the manual and fill the head with 90% Flossugar. No, No! not my head, it’s the floss head of the machine. LOL! Wait a moment! A critical thing forgot to tell “Be very careful about heat control.“
You will produce heavy candy instead of cotton candy if you don’t check your room’s humidity. Hold the Candy Maker stand upright, as per the instructions from Peninsula Party. Never raise it by the spinning disk.
Time for another DON’T. “Never forget to turn off the machine while adding floss sugar.” Here is another direction for you to place your machine on a level or flat surface along with the wide bowl made of aluminum on the machine’s foundation.
You can use stabilizer clips if you have them. The first thing you have to do is connect your device, pour some floss sugar, and distribute it uniformly. Don’t forget to activate the unit and heating materials.
Oh! Here is the good news it only takes a few seconds to produce floss. Your main work is right here, dear! You must select a paper cone to make the floss wrapped up. Roll the paper cone with light flicking action, and you must do it very much faster.
Don’t try to roll the floss while the cone is still inside the pan. This will give the floss a too tight wrap. What are you going to do if your floss doesn’t love to stick with your paper cone?
Here is a tip, just pass the floss near the rotating head and let it pick up a new start with melted sugar. Tada! here comes your fluffy fairy floss or cotton candy.
Who Invented Cotton Candy?
Believe it or not, cotton candy is the brain-child of a dentist. Yes, I was a non-believer like you as well.
How could a dentist step into the world of the confectionary and discovered the fluffiest sweet ever? But, Mr. William Morrison partnered with confectionary specialist Mr. Jhon Wharton and form a company that marketed cotton candy as the pioneer.
A floss-like sweet delivered by a spinning head machine amazed the world for the first time in 1908.
A quiz for you! How much would a stick of cotton candy cost in 1908?
Take a guess. I will answer at the end of the article.
How Did Cotton Candy Get Its Name?
Oozed the question in mind, ‘Why is this sweet candy called cotton candy?’. Most of us are curious about the history behind the name.
Wharton and Morrison developed the first cotton candy machine. There were several small holes in that machine, and these holes were connected to a spinning bowl. This rotatory bowl turned the hot sugar into caramel. The caramel would then pressurize through the tiny holes, and light thread-like strands were produced with a fairy-tale feel.
That process is not what the customer will look for, right? So, they came up with the catchy term “Fairy Floss.” This term was first coined in 1921.
As it was incredibly first moving business, another dentist from New Orleans jumped into this sector. His name was Joseph Lascaux. He renovated the hot caramelized thread concept like sweet and patented with the name “Cotton Candy.” By then, the world forgot the name cotton Candy.
I was wondering, why dentists are so much interested in this sector? The answer is coming right at the end of this paragraph.
So, till now, it has various alias in a different region of the world. North Americans and Indians call this sweet candy cotton candy. In Australia and New Zealand, it retained its age-old name, fairy floss. And another part of the world, like Britain, Pakistan they call it candy floss.
Do a permutation and combination of these names, and you can coin a new name of itself.
Jokes apart, I promised to give my thought on why dentists are so eager to penetrate the cotton candy market?
Because if people stop consuming sugar, dentists will lose 70% of their patients. LOL!
Conclusion
Now you know how to work a cotton candy machine? Cotton candy is a perfect example of beauty with sweetness.
But It’s a bit tough to operate the candy maker machine unless you master it. I must say the cotton candy machine is easy to use, but you need a lot of practice to get your expertise. I hope you enjoy your journey with a cotton candy machine.
The answer to the quiz I asked first. It was only 25 cents! Can you even imagine how cheap it was!
Eat more cotton candy and honor the dentists. LOL!