How To Spin Sugar Into Gold

Who doesn't remember their first taste of cotton candy? Remember how it felt sort of crackly, was super sweet, and then just disappeared? Remember how soft and fluffy it looked, like a cloud on a stick?

Everyone's favorite concessions or carnival food, "floss" as it's known in the industry, is one hot selling item with a huge profit margin. No wonder so many non-profit agencies are discovering that food concessions with professional "carnie" equipment make a lot of sense ... and not just cents, but lots of dollars, too.

Cotton Candy, or Floss, is a candy that's formed when finely granulated flavored and colored sugar is quickly heated to a melting point, and then extruded in thousands of tiny sugar threads that are gathered onto a paper cone. Sounds pretty simple, and it is, except that it takes some practice to get the floss to stay on the cone, and also to learn to create a standard size floss on each stick.

If you buy a floss machine, plan on spending some time practicing - you might be well served to provide floss to a non-profit or charity at an event for the exposure and the practice. It would be time and money well spent.

Photo Credit: AllPosters.com