cotton candy

Cotton candy (also known as spun sugar ) is a confectionery that is mainly sold at fairs .

history

The exact time of the invention of cotton candy is unclear. The first reports can be found in the literature between the 16th and 17th centuries in recipe books. In 1897, William J. Morrison and John C. Wharton filed a patent for a machine for making cotton candy in Nashville .

It is often claimed that cotton candy was first invented in 1897 and presented a few years later at a world exhibition in St. Louis , because the improved machine was patented here. This error even made it into trivial literature, so that it is widespread as a legend.

Manufacturing

In a cotton candy machine, around five to six grams of household sugar or isomalt - maple syrup is also often used in North America - is heated, liquefied and spun using centrifugal force for a portion . Granulated sugar is heated on a heating coil to the pour point at around 150 ° C and thrown away from the spinning head by centrifugal force. On the way from the spinning head, the liquid sugar solidifies into threads and is wound up in a round tub with a stick as cotton candy. The resulting threads are not crystalline like the original substance, but amorphous . Therefore they are as soft as cotton wool . The cotton candy owes its name to this cotton-wool-like consistency. The cotton candy can be colored by adding food coloring . Additional aromas of numerous flavors, such as blueberry, strawberry, cherry or melon, enlarge the range on offer.