Good afternoon, dear readers!
Today, I will describe how to make a device for cotton candy.
There is nothing complicated in the design, everything is simple. I’ll also write down the ingredients for the cotton wool itself at the end.
We will need:
- a motor (not a big motor, you can pull it out of a toy);
- the lid used to seal the jars (iron);
- medium box;
- adhesive tape, electrical tape;
- scissors;
- blank paper;
- power supply for the motor (you can take a charger from your phone and cut off the plug).
It seems like everything, during the text, if I haven’t completed all the details, it will be visible.
The manufacturing process of the device
So, let's start, first we take the motor and connect it to power. I cut off the USB cable from the phone and connected the wires to the motor. Thus, you can connect to any USB socket.
So, the motor itself needs to be attached somewhere, I have a motor of this shape and I used a can of pneumatic bullets as a mount for it, you can come up with something else!
The motor itself still needs to be fixed in the box, I decided to make a removable motor, the bullet can is divided into two parts. The photo makes the meaning clear.
We insulate the motor itself well so that when making cotton candy the motor does not get clogged, you can place it in some container or wrap it with tape.
Now we need a box. You need to take the middle box; for example, I took the first one I came across. Only the top should be open, the rest of the parts should be closed.
Here in the photo you can see the shape of the box, however, I cut the hole myself, it turned out crooked.
It is not known what was in the box. Therefore, to protect myself, it was decided to cover it with something inside, I used food paper, cakes, pies and the like are usually baked on it. If you don’t have it, you can use clean paper, oilcloth, well, whoever has enough imagination for what.
To keep the paper securely, I taped it on the sides:
Now next stage, we need to fix the motor in the center of the box so that it holds confidently and does not move too much to the sides. You also need to remove the wire so that it does not stick out there.
Next, we will need a regular iron lid, which is used to roll up jars; the lid needs to be secured to the rotating part of the motor, at the top. You need to attach it as evenly and tightly as possible. Be sure to check that the motor turns the lid and does not spin, and that the lid rotates as smoothly as possible.
We did everything, the most important thing, hurray! All that remains is to prepare the “mixture” itself for making cotton candy.
Anyone who has prepared the so-called “cockerels” in sugar molds will already begin to guess what we will be talking about.
For those who don't understand, read:
We need:
Sugar;
- water;
- spoon;
- and some kind of capacity.
Take sugar, pour it into the container where we will cook it, add water. The result should be a homogeneous mass, not very thick and not very liquid. Don't overdo it with water!
After pouring in the sugar and water, mix a little, put on the fire and simmer, the main thing is to stir thoroughly, otherwise there will be lumps of sugar. Cook until the mixture turns brown and there will be bulbs - this is normal.
After it’s cooked, we don’t let it cool, we turn on the motor, the lid starts to spin, we start pouring the digested sugar from the container directly onto the lid and observe the appearance of cotton candy!
The main thing is not to rush, not to pour out a lot at once, but also not to hesitate, otherwise the mass of sugar will harden and nothing will work, it’s better to reheat it again. That's it, bon appetit everyone. There was no opportunity to capture the process itself, this is my second “device” for cotton candy, I didn’t do this, but I did it first more than once, it turned out no worse than the one I bought! You can add dyes and flavors, this will give the look, taste and smell of your cotton candy. Whenever possible, I will try to post photos of the process itself.
WHAT IS THE ARTICLE ABOUT?
Where did she come from?
It is believed that cotton candy appeared in the 15th century. The ancient Romans had specially trained people who prepared this delicacy for various holidays. But in this case, this technology is one of the lost ones, since new mentions of cotton candy date back to the 18th century. In Europe, there were mechanical machines that prepared a delicacy similar to modern cotton candy. But the cooking process was very labor-intensive.
Cotton candy is a delicacy made from thin fibers of sugar or sugar syrup wound around a thin base. That’s why cotton candy is so airy and voluminous. Technological process will be discussed below.
Composition and production process
In order to prepare cotton candy, you need the following raw materials:
- Sugar
- Vinegar
- Water
- Dyes
The production process begins with melting sugar in a special machine. Then water is supplied with a very small concentration of vinegar. In this way it is prepared sugar syrup. If desired, dyes and preservatives are added to it.
The prepared raw material is fed to a centrifuge, which spins the syrup and delivers drops of it under pressure through tiny holes. As the droplets fly out, they begin to cool and solidify. At this moment, they are wound onto a base in the form of a thin stick, which allows the formation of long and thin fibers from the hardening syrup. The fibers are wound on each other to the desired volume of product and the process ends. The product is then packaged in a special machine.
Devices and their cost
It is believed that the first device for making cotton candy was invented in 1987 by William Morrison and John Wharton. They presented to the public a device that prepared a new delicacy automatically. This device consisted of:
- Gas burner that melted sugar
- Centrifuges with mesh for feeding syrup
- An air compressor that distributed the fibers onto the base and formed cotton candy
The device discussed above was mechanical, but progress did not stand still. Already in 1903 it was invented electric car for the production of cotton candy, and the industry received a big boost in development.
Range modern devices For cotton candy very wide. Let's look at the most popular of them.
| Name | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Gold Medal - Econo Floss | Its height is 40 centimeters and its diameter is 65. It weighs only seventeen kilograms, which makes it excellent for beginners. In terms of electricity consumption, it is comparable to a kettle and is powered from a regular 220 volt network. In an hour of work you can make about two hundred portions of 15 grams each, and these are medium-sized balls. | 35-39 thousand rubles. |
| Gold Medal - Tornado | The second device is called TORNADO, and is also produced by GOLD MEDAL. It is much more productive and larger than the first model. It is 85 by 60 centimeters, and its height is sixty-five centimeters. Weight is 35 kg. Productivity is maintained at 600 medium-sized portions (15 grams) per hour. Cost per Russian market is about 60 thousand rubles. | 60 thousand rubles. |
There are also a huge number of domestic devices for street trading. They have a low productivity of 60-80 portions per hour. You can buy them for around 10 thousand rubles.
DIY cotton candy
At home, you can make cotton candy either with or without a machine. You can buy a special cotton candy machine, which will cost about 1,500 rubles, or make it yourself.
Manufacturing algorithm homemade typewriter for cotton candy:
- Prepare metal baby food lids or make blanks of similar size.
- Use a file or sandpaper to remove protective covering and paint. They should not get into the cotton wool when used.
- In one of the lids, make a large hole for adding sugar, and in the other there are many small ones for serving the finished syrup.
- Connect the lids together with wire or another method so that there is a space of 5 centimeters between them.
- Attach the motor from a mixer or hair dryer to a rigid base, and then to a lid with small holes. Connect the battery.
- Cover the area around the lids with cardboard.
- The device is ready! Now you can add sugar and collect the melted syrup from the walls.
You don’t always have the desire to do homemade crafts, but you still have the desire to make cotton candy at home. You can try to do it without a machine:
- Mix sugar and water in a ratio of 3 to 1.
- Add 3 drops of 6% vinegar (you may need up to 7 drops if cotton wool does not work out)
- Prepare sugar syrup on the stove. Make sure it doesn't burn.
- Then you need to cool the syrup to 35 degrees. Make sure it doesn't freeze.
- You need to heat and cool the syrup about 6-7 times until it becomes homogeneous and viscous.
- Once the syrup is ready, you need to create threads from it. To do this, take a lot of thin sticks and wind the syrup between them in different directions until you get required quantity.
Many people ask, is it possible to make cotton candy yourself or is it possible to make a cotton candy machine yourself?
I answer the first question: yes, of course! You can even make cotton candy with your own hands at home. To do this, just buy an electric motor, attach an analogue of a jet head to it (a tin can with a bunch of holes) and pour hot sugar syrup into the rotating head. The output will be a sweet sugar fiber - if you collect it and wind it on a stick, it will be cotton candy. Here's how it happens in the video:
Now we need to answer the second question: Is it possible to make a cotton candy machine with your own hands and earn money from it?
Here, not everything is simple: on the one hand, on the Internet there are drawings of machines that can (theoretically) produce cotton candy. And I can even give one of them as an example - see photo
The design includes: electric motor (from washing machine), disk (analogue of a jet head), bushings, body. It is interesting to read the description of the device:
“It is possible to use any other one while maintaining the specified number of shaft rotation speeds. The disc is made from sheet aluminum, its diameter is 170 - 180 mm (and thickness - 0.2 - 0.3 mm. You can use tin from tin can(from under the herring)."
The cotton wool production process is also very interestingly described:
“To prepare 8-10 standard servings, place 110 - 115 grams of granulated sugar (20 - 22 pieces of sugar) in a small, preferably enamel bowl. Pour in 120 - 150 ml of water and, without stirring, put on fire. After 5-10 minutes, the water will boil away, and the sugar will begin to turn slightly yellow, and a light smell characteristic of burnt sugar will appear. Knock down the foam with horizontal movements of the ladle and pour the contents of the ladle in a thin stream onto the edge of the 2-4 mm disk, which is already rotating. Hot syrup, breaking into thousands of thin threads, hardens at room temperature.
Then turn off the engine, separate with a simple knife threads from the body, cut the finished product along the diameter line and roll the resulting semicircle into a tube on the table. Do the same with the second semicircle and cut the “cotton wool” into the required number of servings. Food coloring may be used.
To save High Quality“cotton wool”, it is necessary to clean the disk from adhering syrup after each working cycle. When using two or three ladles at once, the manufacturing process becomes virtually continuous. Don’t despair if the product doesn’t turn out to be of very high quality the first time, use the same mixture again.”
As you can understand, already in the theory of the future vatokata a lot of difficulties await. In practice, I’m sure there will be even more of them - we must not forget that we work in outbound sales and therefore the device must be assembled and disassembled all the time. Unfortunately, in such conditions it is impossible to ensure constant product quality and reasonable speed of cotton wool production.
Therefore, both answers to the second question are negative: it is impossible to make a cotton candy machine with your own hands, and even more so, it will be impossible to make money from it!
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Who among us as a child did not dream of having his own machine for making cotton candy? If, having grown up, you have not decided to connect your life with confectionery art, it is possible to make this dream come true. There are various models of devices on sale: from amateur to professional, from cheap to expensive. And those who know how to work with their hands, according to the instructions, will assemble such a unit from improvised means in 5 minutes. How to do this, and whether it is necessary to do this at all, will be discussed below.
Professional machine for cotton candy at home
The simplest way to prepare this beloved dessert is to use a professional cotton candy machine. You can find such a device both on the Internet and in stores. household appliances, where you have everything you need for your home. Compact, it produces big number portions per a short time, which will be useful for both the party star and the organizer of children's parties. Anyone can use the unit: no professional skills are required for operation.
To enjoy cotton wool, follow a simple sequence of steps:
Step #1. We wash the recently purchased car in warm water and dry thoroughly.
Step #2. We start the device and let it run in idle mode for about five minutes so that the base has time to fully warm up.
Step #3. Pour two teaspoons or tablespoons of sugar onto a metal disk located in the center of the structure (depending on the required serving size). As it heats up, it will begin to turn into threads of a sweet “cobweb”.
Step #4. We take a cocktail straw, a chopstick or any similar object and wrap the resulting threads around it. Slowly move the bowls in a circle until you get a portion of the desired volume.
Step #5. At the end of the work, rinse the device again, dry it and put it out of the reach of children.
Also, when working with the device, be sure to ensure that it:
- Didn't overheat. After creating 1-2 servings, turn off the device and let it cool.
- Didn't stay dirty. Once we are too lazy to wash the device after work, we can permanently disable it.
- Didn't work unsupervised. The web created is very light. Once you gape, it will decorate the chandelier, table, carpet and other surfaces it manages to reach. But it will be difficult to clean them.
Cotton candy machine for home: Necessary materials
If you have neither the money nor the desire to spend money on a professional device, a homemade one can also help in making cotton candy. To assemble it we will need the following materials:
- New cardboard box, the inside is clean and unadorned.
- Plastic bottle with a capacity of at least 5 liters.
- A lid from a jar of baby food or a used CD.
- Tools.
- Worker small motor, which can be borrowed from a children's toy or small household electrical appliance.
- Phone charging with power from 12 to 20 Volts.
Let's start assembling :
Step #1. We thoroughly wash and dry the bottle and cap/CD. We get rid of any elements (paint, labels, etc.) that may get into the cotton wool during cooking.
Step #2. We take a bottle cap, cut holes in it, in which we then fix the motor with glue. We stretch the nipple rubber onto the rotor, and then cover it with a lid from a baby food can. Finished design as follows:
Step #3. Connecting Charger with a motor, we pass the wires through a bottle, the cap of which is carefully screwed on.
Step #4. We place the resulting structure in a box and install it not far from the outlet. Our cotton candy production machine is ready.
Preparing a sweet, airy dessert :
Step #1. Mix sugar and water in a ratio of three to one (assuming that one serving requires about 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar). Mix the solution thoroughly. When it becomes completely homogeneous, add 5 ml of 3% vinegar and mix thoroughly again.
Step #2. Pour the resulting mixture into a saucepan/pan with high walls and, stirring constantly, cook over low heat until thickened.
Step #3. Pour the solution into a ceramic container and let it cool to 30-35 degrees. Then pour it back into the pan and continue heating. We repeat the procedure until the sugar syrup acquires a golden hue and thickens thoroughly.
Step #4. When everything is ready, turn on the machine and begin to pour the prepared syrup onto it in a thin stream. If all the previous steps were taken correctly, the first threads of the “webs” will appear immediately.
All we have to do is wait until the portion of the size we need is formed and enjoy the dessert made with our own hands. Agree, it couldn’t be simpler.
Pros and cons of cotton candy equipment. Is it worth the bother?
Are you planning to buy a cotton candy maker, but aren't sure if it's worth the money? Let's look at the pros and cons of the device to make your choice easier. So, when making a purchasing decision, pay attention to the following indicators:
- Price. The cost of professional units amounts to tens, or even hundreds of thousands of rubles. Home wave models can be found for 3-10 thousand. However, even this amount will be unreasonably large if you plan to use the machine only a couple of times, and then simply push it onto a distant shelf.
- Performance. Those who, on the contrary, want to operate a cotton candy machine on an ongoing basis, when choosing, should focus on its specifications. Will the model you like be able to perform the volume of operations required of it? Or will it become unusable after 5-10 cycles? Reviews and descriptions of device parameters will help you figure it out.
- Demand. Find out if your friends even need such a dessert? If most of the guests are those who closely watch their figure or are indifferent to sweets, then making cotton candy on a machine specially purchased for this purpose will simply waste food and money.
As you can see, everything is obvious. The higher the price of the device, the longer it will serve you. However, even the most sophisticated model will not work on its own, without your participation. Therefore, if you doubt whether it is worth bothering with the purchase, purchase the simplest model for a couple of thousand rubles. on the secondary market. This way, you won’t lose much if your interest in cooking disappears after the first two or three servings, and you’ll be able to more clearly formulate your requirements for the device.
How to make cotton candy using a machine quickly and tasty: everyday tips
Do you want to simplify the cooking process, as well as make it faster and more accurate? These tips will help:
- To make cotton wool taste similar to the one sold during holidays and festivities, we take dry weighed sugar or isomalt. Refined or damp product is not suitable here.
- Regardless of whether you use a professional cotton candy machine or a homemade one, cobwebs and drops of syrup may fly around the room. Therefore, before starting the device, it will not hurt to cover nearby surfaces: the floor, chairs, sink with newspaper or protective film.
- Be extremely careful when pouring hot syrup. Just gape and you are guaranteed to get burned. Therefore, it is better to remove children from the kitchen during the entire cooking time.
- To prevent the mixture from spoiling during cooking (candied, burnt, thickened), stir it constantly and scrape it from the sides of the pan/pan.
If you still have questions, watch the selection of topical videos below. It will help you figure out how to make cotton candy at home.
More interesting things on our website.
Surely many people associate cotton candy with childhood, trips to the park or square, which were always accompanied by eating it. Sometimes you want to remember this taste, but a family trip for a walk is not planned yet. In this case, you can make cotton candy at home with your own hands using a simple set of ingredients. Without a special apparatus, the process, of course, will be difficult, but if desired, it can be mastered.
If you plan to prepare this delicacy often, pampering your children and yourself, it makes sense to purchase the necessary device. Its cost is relatively small, it is easy to use and completely safe.
Equipment
If you decide to purchase a device for cotton candy, or more precisely, for its preparation, you need to know how to use it correctly:
The process of making cotton candy using special equipment is carried out in several stages. The device is warming up. Pour 1-2 tsp of sugar onto the disk. When melted, the product turns into crispy, sweet threads. Now they need to be transferred to a stick.
You can use bamboo or sushi chopsticks. They are lowered into a bowl in a vertical position. When rotated, the threads themselves wind around it, forming a fluffy ball. If there are fibers left on the walls of the container, you can also pick them up using a cotton candy stick.
If there is a need to prepare colored treats, you can use dyes by adding them to sugar.
This equipment allows you to quickly cook delicious sweetness, but it also has its drawbacks:
- The device is quite bulky. Its dimensions are similar to those of a food processor or slow cooker;
- Inexpensive equipment heats up very quickly, so when preparing cotton candy, they need to be turned off periodically. If this is not done, the device will soon fail.
Do not forget to clean the bowl of the machine, otherwise over time it will be completely covered with a layer of sugar.
Having such a device, you can organize constant production cotton candy. Some even believe that this is a great idea for creating and growing their own business.
DIY equipment
The operating principle of the device is simple, which encourages many to create it themselves. To do this, you will need a simple set of materials that can be found, perhaps, in every home, and skillful hands.
Here's how to build this device with your own hands. Clean with a file or sandpaper 2 tin caps (for example, bottle caps). Make a large hole in one of them and several small ones in the second lid, connect them with wire.
Now you need to attach a motor from some home electronic device (for example, a hair dryer) to them. Using wire, attach the entire structure to a board, which will become the base of the device. Using the terminals, attach the motor with the battery (you can use a crown battery).
Place thick cardboard on one side to create a partition. The device in which you can make cotton candy at home is ready and can be used like regular equipment. You can heat the rotating drum using a candle or lighter.
Despite the simplicity of the design, it is not safe, so it is better to get original equipment or do without it altogether. A delicacy prepared with your own hands will turn out no worse than one made using a machine.
In a frying pan or in a saucepan
To start, practice cooking with a small amount of ingredients. The process will require skill. In this regard, it is possible that the first couple of times you will just have to practice.
Ingredients:
- Sugar – 2 tbsp. l.;
- water – 0.5 cups;
- vinegar – 2 drops;
- fork, Chinese chopsticks.
Cooking method:
That's the whole cooking principle. Don't forget about safety precautions. Hot sugar syrup can burn if you are not careful when handling it.
If the first time the cotton wool does not turn out as you expected, there is no need to be upset - next time it will be better.
Colored treat
Colored cotton candy is especially loved by children and adults, but how to make it at home? It's absolutely not difficult. Today there is a huge variety of dyes and food additives, which will allow the treat to acquire a new taste.
The most popular dyes: yellow curcumin, red betanin, yellow saffron, purple anthocyanin, fiery red paprika. True, when studying their composition, it becomes clear that there are very few natural ingredients - all chemicals. When preparing treats for children, you should not use such components.
You can make colored cotton wool using the juice of fruits and berries (strawberries, raspberries, lemons, oranges, mint syrup, etc.). It diversifies the taste and gives beautiful colour. The technology for preparing the treat will not change - just add the juice to the rest of the ingredients.
If you cook in a frying pan (or in a saucepan), use less water - the required volume of liquid will be replenished with juice. Having prepared several syrups with various additives, you can connect their threads, then the sweetness will turn out to be multi-colored.
When preparing the ingredients, it is important to note that the sugar for making cotton candy must be of the highest quality. You should not use dyed raw materials - most likely, they were used to give color chemical substances, so just use natural dyes.