Going with your child to a park, circus or other places intended for family holidays, you will almost certainly see traders offering to buy cotton candy. It is not easy to reject such a proposal: a sweet, fragrant “tow” on a stick looks incredibly seductive, and the children eating it look really happy and contented. It is useless to convince oneself, and especially a child, that there is no use in it, that it costs a thousand times more than the cost of its constituent products, that it smears its face and hands. This sweet temptation has long been an attribute of the holiday, fun, childlike serenity.
But in order to experience the festive mood, enjoying the sweet threads wound on a stick, it is not necessary to rush to the park or other public place. The holiday can be arranged for yourself and households without leaving home. Cooking cotton candy at home is quite a realistic idea. Having trained, an inexperienced hostess will cope with the task. She will need only patience, accuracy and the availability of a certain amount of time, unless, of course, to spend money on the purchase of appropriate equipment. A special unit will greatly simplify and speed up the process.
Cooking Features
The technology of making cotton candy at home with a special unit and without it is significantly different. In the first case, only sugar or a dry aromatic mixture based on it is needed, in the second case, the syrup turned into liquid caramel. Syrup is useful to cook for some types of machines for the production of cotton candy. Units for the production of cotton candy can be industrial and compact, for home use only the second option is suitable. Such devices cost from 2 to 3 thousand rubles, although you can find cheaper and more expensive cars. The principle of their work may vary slightly.
Cotton wool production turbines have a large bowl, in the center of which is a turbine. Sugar or a dry mixture based on it is poured into it. Additives for making cotton candy sweet color and aroma, taste of fruits, berries and other delicacies can be ordered in online stores. They cost about 500-1000 rubles per pack, which is enough for at least 25 kg of sugar. In terms of cotton candy is a huge amount. When the unit is heated, the sugar granules inside the turbine melt and spray out thin filaments on the inner walls of the bowl of the device. The cook needs only to lower a stick into it (special or adapted) and to collect caramel threads on it with rotational movements.
Disc machines for making cotton candy require the prior preparation of a syrup that is poured onto a hot rotating disc. With it, caramel is sprayed on the walls of the bowl. If you put a straw in the bowl, the sweet threads will entangle it and you will get cotton candy almost indistinguishable from the purchased one.
Most modern units allow the production of cotton candy by both methods described.
The acquisition of the unit can be considered expedient if there are many children in the house and for them children’s holidays are often arranged. For a small family, such a purchase is unlikely to be justified. Wanting to please the children with sweet treats, cotton candy will have to be made with their own hands without the help of the apparatus. For this, a syrup is prepared, which in a few tricks is boiled down to the state of caramel. It is pulled out with a fork or a whisk, wrapped around two or three supports, which are later separated from each other. The result is 2-3 servings of dessert. Preparing cotton candy at home, you need to consider a few points.
- Boil the caramel in several stages, otherwise it will become dark and not sufficiently volatile, cotton candy from it will turn out to be insufficiently tasty and appetizing.
- Before cooking cotton candy and other surfaces that may be splashed on, it is necessary to cover it with newspapers, cellophane, otherwise you will be tormented to wash the room.
- Hot syrup, which can also be sprayed, is easy to burn. When working with him you need to be careful, hands do not hurt to protect gloves. Children and pets during the preparation of dessert from the kitchen will have to be expelled, although the process will cause them to be curious.
- To give the cotton candy a bright color and flavor, you can use not only ready-made additives, but also natural dyes, flavors. Berry syrups, vanilla and mint extracts, beet juice (it is used instead of water) proved to be the best. If you decide to go on a simple path and purchase a special mixture, study its composition to make sure that it does not contain harmful components.
Taking into account the above recommendations, you will almost certainly be able to make delicious cotton candy with your own hands, even if there is no kitchen equipment specially designed for its production.
Recipe for cotton candy in a turbine-type apparatus
Composition:
- sugar or sugar mixture - 1-2 scoops per serving.
Method of preparation:
- Assemble the pre-washed and dried unit, connect it to the power supply.
- Wait 2-3 minutes for the machine to warm up.
- Put the measuring spoon in the hole located in the center of the turbine.
- Wait until silky threads start to appear in the aggregate bowl.
- Dip the wand into the bowl and, rotating it, gather around it a silky fiber.
As sugar ends, you can add sugar. Then you can make several servings of cotton candy or one large. After the desired amount of food is prepared, the device must be turned off, disassembled, washed and wiped dry. Tightening the washing device is not worth it - frozen caramel is harder to wash.
Recipe for cotton candy from syrup (for cooking using a special machine)
Composition:
- berry or fruit syrup - 20-40 ml per 1 serving.
Method of preparation:
- Turn on the unit, let it warm up. The disk will become hot enough in 2-3 minutes.
- Type syrup in a spoon, carefully drip it onto the edge of the rotating disc.
- When threads resembling a cobweb are formed, lower the straw into the bowl and collect the cobweb around the wand. Do not forget to pour syrup to the disk a little bit.
After making cotton candy, the unit should be washed and dried. Do not forget to disconnect it from the mains.
Cotton candy recipe without an apparatus
Composition:
- sugar - 150 g;
- water - 50 ml;
- Apple Cider Vinegar (6%) - 5 drops.
Method of preparation:
- Think of what you will collect cotton candy for. You can use forks, spoons, chopsticks for eating Japanese dishes, cocktail tubes. It is important to fix them vertically at a distance of about 10-15 cm from each other. If you put them closer, portions of cotton candy will come out too small, but if the distance is too large, it will be difficult for you to wind these supports with sweet threads.
- Sugar pour water, rub with a fork.
- Add vinegar, mix.
- Put the sugar in a small saucepan, put it on a slow fire.
- Heat the sugar, often stirring it and collecting it from the walls to the center. Avoiding sugar sticking is very important, otherwise your dessert will have an unpleasant burning taste.
- When the sugar is completely melted, remove the container with it from the heat, not waiting for the syrup to darken - this is just not necessary.
- While stirring the syrup, wait until it cools down to about the temperature of the human body. Stir the syrup while cooling down so that it does not become sweet.
- Put the cooled syrup back on low heat, bring to a boil, remove from heat.
- Heat and cool the syrup until it thickens and becomes golden. You can check the readiness of the syrup with a spoon: if the syrup reaches after it when it is removed from the container, it is ready. In order for the syrup to acquire the necessary strength, it will have to be heated and cooled 5-7 times.
- Catch a hot, thick syrup with a fork or a whisk, wind the syrup threads that stretch behind the fork around the prepared supports. If they are far away, the sweet threads may simply not reach from one support to another, therefore, if you don’t have experience in making cotton candy with your own hands, it’s worthwhile to get closer to each other.
- When the supports are entangled in a large layer of caramel yarns, cotton candy can be removed from them and put into the bag. You can divide the treat in two portions or collect it on one stick.
The remaining sugar syrup should not be thrown away. You can put it in a mold and give it time to freeze. As a result, you get a delicious candy. You can add a few drops of vanilla or mint extract, a teaspoon of berry syrup, a small amount of food coloring to the products indicated in the recipe. This will provide a brighter and more aromatic delicacy.
If you come up with the idea to make cotton candy at home, you can make it even without a special technique. To do this, you will need only sugar, water and a few drops of vinegar.
