Ever wondered how cotton candy machines work?
Don’t we all love the taste and texture of cotton candy? It’s one of the most unique looking candy that is available for us. Looking at the vendor making a cotton candy for you can sometimes be little intriguing and makes you wonder how does that all happen around a stick.
Cotton candy goes way back, and it was only in the near end of the nineteenth century that a dentist decided to make a machine that can produce the impossible looking cotton candy. Before the machines was invented, people used to make cotton candy manually and that is the reason why it was highly expensive and normal people couldn’t afford it.
A dentist named William Morrison along with the help of a confectioner named John C. Wharton together ideated and introduced a machine that turned sugar into cotton candy. People loved the cotton candy so much that later they were willing to pay a high price for it. There is also a day in the year that is dedicated to cotton candy. It is called National Cotton Candy Day and is celebrated on November 7 every year.
As complicated or mysterious the cotton candy and its machine looks, it’s actually a very simple process. The simple science behind the whole concept is melting sugar with the help of hot air with so much force that melts the sugar and spins long strands through tint holes in the machine and that soon dries out, taking the form of threads that look like cotton.
Things that go in the making of the machine are metal bowl, mostly steel or stainless steel, a motor that throws hot air and a spinner through which sugar is spun out. When the machine is turned on, the sugar or colored sugar that’s been put inside the container between the spinner is spun out with the force of a fan motor with hot air. One has to stir a stick around the spinner so that the melted sugar, which is now dry, gets wrapped around the stick and becomes candy.
If you are wondering what else is there in the ingredients, well, it’s just sugar and nothing else. There is color added to the sugar and that gives it pink or blue color. Having said that, you can add any edible color to the sugar and make cotton candies of any color.
