Cotton Candy/Fairy Floss is only made from two ingredients: air and coloured sugar. The process to make it is simple. First, you add flavoured sugar to the center of the cotton candy machine called the ‘head’. Then the center, which spins, begins to heat up to 300 degrees and melts the sugar. When the center begins to spin, the melted sugar is then flung outwards from the head by centrifugal force.
The Science:
Sucrose (carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms) is heated by special coils to melting point, which breaks the molecular bonds and converts it to liquefied sugar. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms rearrange to form water molecules which promptly evaporate, leaving only carbon behind. The carbon burns and the sugar begins to caramelise. As the sugar caramelises, its container is spinning at over 3,400 revolutions per second. When the hot liquid sugar meets the cool air outside the machine, thousands of filaments form, creating a delicate and tasty treat.
Credit: www.gmpopcorn.com, www.dynamicwest.com