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Cotton Candy: A Homespun Treat

A staple at fairs and kid-friendly events, cotton candy combines delicious flavor with a fun texture. Learn more with Groupon's guide to this wispy treat.

Just as a cloud is nothing but a hovering mass of water vapor, cotton candy is deceptively simple: each billow is composed entirely of sugar. In a conventional cotton-candy machine, granular sugar—as well as food coloring—is poured into a heated cylinder, which melts it into liquid. The cylinder then spins at a fast enough rate to fling the liquid through tiny grommets, causing the fast-cooling sugar to congeal into threads and collect along the walls of a large outer bowl. The vendor then uses a paper stick to spool the sticky threads into a fluffy drumstick, ready to eat or use as a torch to navigate a dark gumdrop forest.

The Threads of History

Because of its thread-like consistency, cotton candy was originally marketed as fairy floss. That term first entered the public consciousness at the 1904 Saint Louis World's Fair, where confectioner John Wharton and his unlikely partner—a dentist—unveiled their machine-spun creation. The treat may have existed in some form before that, however, as Venetian pastry chefs had experimented with "spun sugar" in the 15th century, and aristocrats in 18th-century England and the US seemed to consider it an indulgence on special occasions.