It’s almost Easter! Cotton candy with Gesine Bullock-Prado

Ah, Spring! It doesn’t quite feel that way around New York City (what with the warm-cold temperature patterns and the bizarre summer-esque thunderstorms) but somewhere underneath all that dreariness lie delicate Spring blossoms, radiant sunshine, chirping birds and luscious green grass. It’s also Easter time, a celebration marked (aside from the religious significance) by a lot of richly-hued hardboiled eggs and many, many sugary treats. We thought today was the perfect time to share a recipe from  Sugar Baby: Confections, Candies, Cakes & Other Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Sugar by Gesine Bullock-Prado. The book’s delightful confections are a perfect alternative for anyone sick of marshmallow peeps, including today’s recipe for homemade cotton candy (also the book’s cover image). Fear not: This recipe is not nearly as hard as it may sound. But if something like homemade rock candy or mango mousse cake is more your style, feast your eyes on some other incredible sweet treats featured in the book in our gallery of images below (or just watch Gesine work wonders with sugar in the Sugar Baby book trailer).

Cotton Candy
From Sugar Baby, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011

Or candy floss! Or fairy floss! Or Papa’s beard! Personally, I prefer “candy floss,” the British appellation, because it conjures a host of potential nightmares for dental technicians; while I have the utmost respect for those lovely people, there’s the evil gnome in me that would love to see “candy floss” in the dental hygiene aisle just to vex them. “Fairy floss” is a perfectly scrumptious name, and it pleases me immeasurably to think of burly, stubbly Aussie blokes ordering up “fairy floss” for their sweet little children. And speaking of stubble, who in the hell thought it was a good idea to call something you wrap on a stick and eat “Papa’s beard”? Regardless of what other people call it, it’s heaven on earth. Just not to a dentist

Makes 8 cotton candies

4 cups  sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup water
¾  teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon raspberry extract (or any flavor you like)
2 drops pink food coloring (optional)
“decapitated” whisk*

*NOTE: We all know you make cotton candy with that big round drum thingy with air shooting through it. It’s a very specialized piece of equipment, made just for cotton candy production. To make cotton candy at home, you also need a very specialized piece of equipment: a decapitated whisk. With a wire cutter, snip the tines at the end of a wire whisk so you have straight metal branches. This will not yield quite as feather-light a result as the carnival iteration, but it’s pretty damn close, and you won’t have to invest thousands of dollars in eclectic machinery.

1. Cover 8 cardboard paper-towel tubes with parchment (I just loosely tape the parchment onto the tube). Set aside. With a damp pastry brush, wipe down the sides of the pan to prevent stray sugar crystals from forming.

2. In a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt. Stir until the sugar is melted.

3. Clip on a candy thermometer, stop stirring, and heat to 320ｰF (160ｰC). Pour the molten liquid into a shallow heatproof container. Add the extract and food coloring (if using) and stir well.

4. Line your work table with parchment. I also spread parchment on the floor around the table to catch any stray bits of flying sugar.

5. Dip your decapitated whisk into the sugar syrup and hold it over the pot to let the sugar drip back into container for a second. Holding the whisk a foot (30 cm) above the parchment, swing the whisk back and forth so that thin strands of sugar fall on the paper. Repeat this a few more times until you have a nice nest of spun sugar.