Candy floss

Cotton candy

Spinning cotton candy at a funfair
Alternative names	Candy floss, fairy floss
Type	Confectionery
Created by	William Morrison and John C. Wharton
Main ingredients	Sugar, food coloring

Cotton candy (also known as fairy floss in Australia,candy floss in the UK and New Zealand) is a form of spun sugar. According to the New York Times, the confection "is almost 99.999 percent sugar, with dashes of flavoring and food coloring."

Made by heating and liquefying sugar and spinning it out through minute holes, where it re-solidifies in minutely thin strands of "sugar glass," the final cotton candy contains mostly air, with a typical serving weighing approximately 1 ounce or 30 grams. Often served at fairs, circuses, carnivals, and Japanese festivals, cotton candy is sold on a stick or in a plastic bag.Food coloring can be used to change the natural white color, and numerous flavorings are available to change the taste.

Similar confections include the Indian Sohan papdi, the Persian Pashmak, and the Turkish Pişmaniye, although the latter is made with flour and water in addition to sugar.

There are several claims for the origin of cotton candy, with some sources tracing it to a form of spun sugar found in Europe in the 19th century. At that time, spun sugar was an expensive, labor-intensive endeavor and was not generally available to the average person. Others suggest versions of spun sugar originated in Italy as early as the 15th century.

Machine-spun cotton candy was invented in 1897 by the dentist William Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton and first introduced to a wide audience at the 1904 World's Fair as "Fairy Floss" with great success, selling 68,655 boxes at 25¢ per box (equivalent to $7 per box today). Joseph Lascaux, a dentist from New Orleans, Louisiana, invented a similar cotton candy machine in 1921. In fact, the Lascaux patent named the sweet confection “cotton candy” and the "fairy floss" name faded away, although it retains this name in Australia. In the 1970s an automatic cotton candy machine was created which made the product and packaged it. This made it easier to produce and available to sell at carnivals, fairs, and stores in the 1970s and on.

Tootsie Roll of Canada Ltd., the world's largest cotton-candy manufacturer, makes a bagged, fruit-flavored version called Fluffy Stuff.