How To Make An Array Of Cotton Candy With Just One Ingredient

Cooking with candy can be a lot of fun, especially when it comes to cotton candy. This fluffy, nostalgic carnival treat is fun to consume in any form, from cotton candy flavored ice cream to a cotton candy old fashioned. But if there isn't a fair in town this week, it's easier to make at home than you might think ... and you don't even need a cotton candy machine. In fact, all you need are a few Jolly Ranchers.

To make your DIY cotton candy, add three unwrapped Jolly Ranchers to a microwave-safe bowl and nuke them for thirty seconds. Once your candy has been liquefied, you can use a straw to blow it into fluffy threads, then lightly shape these together with your hands to create cotton candy. Since you are blowing air into the candy to create the strands, it will have more of a bubbly texture than a thread-like one, but it will still taste delicious! You can also add Jolly Ranchers directly to a cotton candy machine, where they will dissolve from the heat and turn into spun sugar ... though crushing them into a powder beforehand is also recommended.

Cotton candy is typically made using a packaged mix of flavored sugar that is slightly coarser than normal granulated sugar (sugar that is too fine can burn in a cotton candy machine). The machine heats and spins the mixture, creating fine cloud-like threads that are gently wrapped around each other using a paper cone.

Homemade cotton candy that doesn't use a machine typically requires a combination of sugar, flavorings, and corn syrup. Using standard corn syrup is important, as it keeps the sugar from crystallizing, and buys you time since homemade cotton candy takes longer to make. One popular method involves cutting the top off a whisk and using it to manually pull threads of sugar — ingenious, but certainly time-consuming.

Since Jolly Ranchers are made of corn syrup and sugar, along with flavoring and coloring agents like blue raspberry or red dye, it makes sense that they would accomplish a similar effect to a conventional homemade cotton candy recipe. Other similar hard candies should also work, so feel free to experiment! Just know that, as regular cotton candy condenses and hardens slightly in your mouth, your Jolly Rancher cotton candy can reconstitute its original hard candy-like texture when eaten.