How do cotton candy machines work

Cotton candy sugar contains Flossine or another brand of this product mixed in, which is why the sugar for cotton candy is sometimes called "sugar mix. Flossine is a product developed by Gold Medal as an additive for cotton candy. Cotton Candy Show says it is the secret ingredient that provides cotton candy's aroma and texture. If you can't buy cotton candy sugar mix premade, add 2 tablespoons of Flossine to every 10 pounds of regular granulated sugar.

Peninsula Party , which provides cotton candy machine rental, says to only use floss sugar in cotton candy machines. Other sugars may damage the heating element. Central Restaurant Products explains that you should only use percent pure cane or beet sugar that has no additives. Some sugars are mixed with cornstarch called free-flowing sugar or may be blended with other sugars, such as corn syrup or dextrose. All of these could potentially damage the machine by clogging the filter or producing a poor-quality cotton candy.

The cotton candy maker spins and heats up. The sugar is added, and it is heated up and then forced through a disk or cylinder punctured with hundreds of tiny holes to create the long strands of sugar floss. In a basic sense, the sugar floss mix is poured into a central reservoir, where it is gently heated to a liquid state.

Once it is liquefied, it is forced through the compartment with the holes. While the mass of sugar starts out molten, being split into so many little pieces gives it much greater surface area than before — much more of it is exposed to the cooler air — and so it goes from being liquid to being solid in an instant.

The resulting sugar cobweb collects all around the inside of the big pan, and you can use a paper cone to lift it out and wrap it up into the familiar pouf. Candyfloss machines make this process relatively simple, but long before they existed confectioners were still trying to get something like this to happen to sugar.

Then you return with the knife to pick up another strand, continuing as long as the sugar remains molten — hopefully long enough for you to get enough sugar threads wrapped around your mold to make a nice web or nest to put delicacies in. Luckily for those of us who do not possess such wells of patience and dexterity, in two Americans applied for a patent for a candyfloss machine.

Deadly dull descriptions notwithstanding, the thing was a hit. At the World's Fair in St Louis, Morrison, who happened, ironically, to be a dentist , and Wharton sold spun sugar to all comers. According to a lovely and authoritative Gourmet article by Bruce Feiler, they sold a whopping 68, boxes. Sweet-toothed readers take note: Another confection to have its world debut at the fair was the waffle cone. Improvements to the machine eventually followed — apparently it had a problem with vibration — but the contraption described by the original patent is similar to the one used today.

Could candyfloss machines help scientists create artificial tissue? Credit: Getty Images. The candy then forms from the pan surface back to the spinner head. A savvy operator gathers the floss off the sides of the pan, not near the head, which would produce a harder, heavier candy. Read more Jersey Living articles. By submitting comments you grant permission for all or part of those comments to appear in the print edition of New Jersey Monthly. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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