Cotton Candy

The art of making cotton candy

Watermelon and blue raspberry cotton candy

Today I found out that making cotton candy isn't as easy as it looks. After a few tries ( ok, quite a few tries) I finally came up with what cotton candy should look like. The trick is not to place the paper cone down to close to the heating element. Its more of a grab, roll and pull motion above the bowl that works. With my first attempt the machine wasn't hot enough and it had to many crystals in it. The second and third times were better because it was hotter. I finally figured out that I need to pull the sugar "web" way out of the bowl instead of keeping the cone inside the bowl and than twirl and spin  the sugar "web". This made it more light and fluffy instead of pressed together.  We bought a small cotton candy machine today with the birthday party in mind, but we now have lots of plans for it. It takes 2 hard candies to spin a decent size cotton candy. This time I used Jolly Rancher hard candy. The cotton candy tasted just like the flavor of the candy. My favorite was the grape. Any hard candy can be used, even in different combinations. Sugar free candy is a good option also. I plan trying a root beer flavor and a cream flavor candy to see if it taste like root beer float (lol).  I really think the kids will get a kick out of this.