FOOD NEWS
The High-Tech Way Commercial Cotton Candy
Is Made
By Aimee Lamoureux
Cotton candy is essentially just sugar, coloring, and air: to make it, sugar is spun around at very high heat until it is melted and broken into thin, wispy cotton threads. While this general process remains the same between large and small batches, commercial cotton candy requires a little more high-tech equipment to keep up with the demand.
The commercial cotton candy machine does two very important things: gets very hot and spins very fast. Dr. William Morrison teamed up with the candy-maker John C. Wharton to make the first cotton candy machine, and modern industrial machines can make up to thousands of revolutions per minute and heat up to over 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
The colored, flavored sugar crystals are poured into the industrial tub, where it is spun around the heated center and quickly melted down, before it is forced through the fine holes of the screen. Once the melted sugar hits the air, it hardens into the tasty thin threads we know and love.