How Is Cotton Candy Made

How is cotton candy made?

Making cotton candy is actually very simple. The powdered sugar is heated and melted in a high-temperature container. The machine rotates at high speed to generate centrifugal force. The melted sugar is sprayed from the small holes of the container, and it is quickly cooled into sugar silk when it encounters air. Spin these sugar shreds, the more sugar shreds accumulate, and gradually form a fluffy shape. If you want cotton sugar of various colors, add powdered sugar with edible coloring.

Cotton Candy's History

What became popular snacks and desserts today dates back to about 600 hundred years ago. The original versions of cotton candy called spun sugar were popular with the upper class dating back to the 1400s in Italy. Italians heated and melted the sugar, and dipped it with a small stick to quickly pull out the filaments and wrapped around the sticks to make silk-like candies, or rather, spun sugar. Because the process of creating spun sugar was so time consuming and used sugar, a luxury ingredient at the time, spun sugar was typically a delicacy only afforded to the wealthy or elite.

Spun sugar was typically made as an edible table centerpiece and accompanied by various fruits. In fact, there were chefs that were renowned to be spun sugar "sculptors", and they would spend hours creating works of art from the liquid sugar.

Cotton candy of the modern form that we're familiar with was first created in 1897 when an American dentist named William Morrison joined forces with a confectioner, John C. Wharton.  Together, the duo created a machine that spun heated sugar through a screen, creating the floss-like texture that we all know and love. They trademarked it as "Fairy Floss". At the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, cotton sugar, or rather Fairy Floss rose to fame and became popular household treat.

In 1921, another dentist by the name of Josef Lascaux entered into the cotton candy business. But to avoid association with the original "Fairy Floss" created by Morrison and Wharton, Lascaux decided to market his version as "cotton candy". He thought that the treat looked like the cotton grown in Louisiana, the state he resided in.