I need to warn you: As soon as you read about how easy it is to make spun sugar you'll be setting a pot on the stove and trying it yourself. So don't read any further unless you're prepared to become a spun sugar master this instant.
There are a couple of reasons why you want to make some spun sugar this holiday season and a couple of reasons why you don't.
Let's go through the list of why you DO want to make it first.
1. Being able to spin sugar lets everyone know you're better than they are.
2. You never can tell when a food critic's car might break down in front of your house. You don't want him/her to think you're some sort of asshead who doesn't know how to spin sugar. Best to always be prepared.
Now the list of why you DON'T want to make spun sugar this holiday season.
1. No one likes a show off (but who cares).
2. It can make a mess, splattering sugar all over your kitchen and hair and it's entirely possible the food critic will never leave your house because he will be forever stuck to the floor (but who cares).
O.K., now that that's settled, let's talk about how we're all going to spin sugar this holiday season.
The best part about spun sugar is it's easy to make. Much easier than the look of it would imply.
Table of Contents
How to make spun sugar
In a nutshell, spun sugar is just thin strands of melted sugar that have been formed into a ball, nest, ribbon, or whatever. To get the strands you have to melt the sugar, let it cool a tiny bit, then use a spun sugar whisk or something to pick up the sugar syrup and fling it around. Once it reaches the cool air it starts to harden, creating thin strands of gold.
What's a spun sugar whisk?
To pick up the melted sugar and fling it around you need a spun sugar whisk, which has lots of little tips, unlike a regular whisk which has no tips at all.
You can make a spun sugar whisk by just cutting the loops on your own whisk.
I made the one below. It's just a regular whisk that I've cut the end off of with wire cutters. This lets you have many tips for the sugar strands to come off of when you're flinging it.
The only things you need are sugar, water and either corn syrup or cream of tartar.
-
water, sugar, cream of tartar -
boil to 300 F
The water, sugar and cream of tartar get combined and brought to a 300 F boil. NO STIRRING!
Once it's reached that temperature you turn the heat off, let it cool a minute or two and then dip your whisk in it and very quickly flick the whisk in long strokes to create long strands of gold sugar thread.
You can also wind the sugar around utensils to create coils of gold.
You're supposed to line your floors with newspaper if you make spun sugar. The first time I did this I didn't line my floors with newspapers because I'm super-cool.
And super-cool girls don't need to line their floors with paper. Super-cool girls are also stupid. And sticky.
Confused? Watch this quick video of me making spun sugar and sugar spirals.
You can flick your whisk faster and wider, but doing that is going to create more mess. Better sugar strands, but more collateral damage.
It. Is. SO. Much. Fun. I don't even know what I'm doing and I can make it look good.
It'd difficult to be great at sugar art, but easy to be good at it.
The one thing to keep in mind, the real downfall of this whole spun sugar situation is it really does need to be made the day you're going to use it. Preferably right before.
If it isn't humid it won't be as much of an issue, but if there's any humidity in the air your sugar will lose its form and get soft and weepy.
Spun Sugar Technique
Ingredients
Materials
- Stainless steel or copper pot
- A couple of wooden spoons
- A whisk with the ends clipped
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 2 Tbsps Corn Syrup or ¼ teaspoon Cream of Tartar
Instructions
- Set your burner to medium low.
- Pour ¼ cup of water into pot, followed by 2 Tablespoons of corn syrup (or ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar) and finally 1 cup of sugar. Make sure you slowly pour the sugar into the pot, keeping it in the centre so none of if touches the sides of the pot.
- Now LEAVE it. Don’t stir it, swish it or move it. (if you stir the mixture it will crystallize) Allow the sugar to melt into the water on its own.
- Heat the sugar mixture at medium low until it reaches 300 f degrees. That’s bordering the hard crack stage. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, 300 f degrees is when the sugar has just started to become a light amber colour. If it’s taking more than 5 minutes to get to this stage, turn up the heat a little bit.
- Once you’ve reached temperature take your pot off the heat and let it cool down a bit. (a lot of cooks say they dunk their pot into cold water for a few seconds to stop the cooking of the sugar but I find when you’re just doing a small amount like this, you’re better off not dunking the pot into cool water because it cools it too quickly.
- Take either 2 forks in your hand or a wire whisk that you’ve cut the ends off of and dip it into the sugar and lift it up. If you see tiny strands (as opposed to drips) coming off the tines, your sugar is cool enough to fling.
- Set a couple of wood spoons over a bowl and just flick your whisk back and forth over it. The higher you hold the whisk the better and the stronger you fling it the better. BUT you’ll also get spun sugar all over your kitchen. I just slowly pull the sugar back and forth across the bowl. The upside? Not as much sugar around the kitchen. The downside? The strands are slightly thicker than if you fling the sugar.
- Lift the spun sugar and form it into whatever shape you want. You can place it over a greased bowl or cup to get a rounded look. Or you can lift the strands as a long ribbon, wrap them around a straight sided glass or mason jar to make a big circle.
- Once your sugar starts to get a bit too cool to fling, you can make your twirls. Take a spoon or knife and dip it into the sugar. Let the ribbon of sugar hang down and using a dowel or the handle of a wood spoon, just twirl the ribbon of sugar around it. I like these even more than the spun sugar and they’re way less messy to do because you aren’t flinging anything around.
- 10. If your sugar gets too cool to work with just put it back on the stove and reheat it remembering not to stir it while it heats up. Each time you reheat your mixture it will get darker and darker making your spun sugar more and more caramelized. So you’ll start off with spun sugar that is a light amber and end up with spun sugar that’s more of a dark amber colour.
Nutrition
Tips Learned by Making Spun Sugar for an Entire Day.
- I first made it with only sugar (hardens too quickly, isn't pliable for long).
- Then I made it with sugar and water (same pliability problem, but totally doable if you don't have corn syrup or cream of tartar).
- Next I made it with sugar, water and corn syrup. (this worked the best along with ...)
- Sugar, water and cream of tartar (worked just as well as corn syrup)
- To clean your pot once the sugar syrup has hardened in it, just fill the pot with water and put it on the burner.
- Don't even attempt to make this on a humid day.
- If it's winter and really dry in your house, the sugar will last a day or two on the counter before it gets weird. (melts, gets sticky). If you want to store it longer apparently you can put it in Tupperware with as many of those silica packs as you can scrounge up in your house.
- Lay down the newspaper, Coolio. Just put down the newspaper damnit.
Elen Grey
Hey. I'm just trying to get through the Christmas Pledge here, Karen. LOL I love, love, love that first image.
Karen
Thanks Elen! As long as you've gotten through most of the pledge, or some of it, maybe just one thing … I think you can do the sugar. ~ karen!
Mary Werner
LOVE that spurtle spool coil!
Melissa in North Carolina
Thanks for sharing this amazing technique, but I will admire from afar. I must admit, it would be fun to be able show off to my youngest daughter, a true foodie. VERY COOL Karen!!!!
LazySusan
What a brave woman you are to do that in such a nice sweater. I'd be head to toe (and especially on the elbows) spun sugar, with about an inch of it on the spoon handle and the rest on me. It does look like fun, though, and would be a nice touch for a fancy dinner party. I can see small sugar nests at Easter dinner with small chocolate birds eggs in them.
Jody
I will never in a million gazillion trizillion years try this. But it does look beautiful. I just really like looking at the photos.
Heather
Food porn! These photos are really, really, REALLY good!
Karen
Thanks Heather. I keep practicing. :) ~karen
Tigersmom
Ha! I thought it was just my computer but as I scrolled back up to admire them again, I noticed the reappearing one in the last photo. You have become quite the photo effects whiz!
Tigersmom
It is beautiful and ethereal and golden. All things I love. And all things I will appreciate from a distance as I have an open kitchen with upholstered furniture in flinging range.
Really beautiful, though.
Oh, and are those individual pumpkin pies made with real, not-canned, pumpkin that they are gracing?
Karen
ha! No those are little butter tarts. (it's all I had around to display the spun sugar. Well … it was between the butter tarts and a bowl of chili) ~ karen!
pat
Mmm, butter tarts, but no raisins? My family hates the raisin version, but I like them. They prefer my Christmas version which has dried cranberries. It's almost time to break out the tart shells; if I make butter tarts too early, they get found by my family and I never have time to make more before Christmas.
Spun sugar looks hard; pretty, but hard. I'm more of a "it's really easy to make, but impresses the pants off people" kind of baker / cook.
Ev Wilcox
Very cool, and yes, you are better than us! Until we make spun sugar too, that is. Thanks for a fun tutorial. Trying to figure out who's house to use to make this ....
Meg
this is AMAZING.
it's like Pele's hair.
I am guessing cotton candy is some really THINNER version of this. Like why they have the big drum where you collect the sugar in...
I can't wait to try this on this year's gingerbread house. (which I WILL HAVE TIME FOR if I FINISH my pledge, dang it.)
Karen
Hi Meg. Yup. This is exactly what spun sugar is. Just pure sugar cooked to a certain temp and then flung into tiny threads. ~ karen!
Grammy
That actually looks like fun. But so does performing on a trapeze. I'm not trying either of them. My idea of kitchen magic is teaching a five-year-old how to make Pineapple Upside Down Cake, which I'm going to do next week. I guarantee he will be as impressed with the cake as the rest of us are with your beautiful spun sugar. So you are better than I am, but I won't have to spread newspaper on my floor.
Deb J.
You're lucky. Any time I tried to bake with any of my 3 kids, I usually wished I'd spread newspapers:)
Grammy
This is my grandson, Deb, and that would be true for him, too. But over the years I've kind of developed a system where I anticipate where the worst mess will be and assign the kid to do one of the things that is least destructive and most fun. For an upside-down cake I'm counting on him not minding me making the batter this time while he spends an inordinate amount of time arranging the maraschino cherries in the design.
Becky
spun sugar on top of the pineapple upside down cake would be amazing. The crunchy corners are my favorite part.
SeaDee
Really pretty. Love the video.
How about laying down a shower curtain or some painters plastic on the floors and counters?
Tigersmom
You wouldn't think so (I know because I tried it while painting), but plastic on the floor becomes incredibly slippery and dangerous. This is why painters still use fabric drop cloths and not plastic even though paint can seep through the fabric.
I speak from a near-concussion experience on this one.
theresa
ditto
Pam'a
One super-helpful hint comes to mind here for keeping the floor clean, and you don't have to spread newspapers: Do it at a friend's place. Heh.
Stephanie
" Don’t even attempt to make this on a humid day."
LOL, thanks for the warning! We've had 109 inches of rain so far this year in Hilo, and that's BELOW average. Even a "dry" day is humid here. I can't make merinques, either, for the same reason. Although it's nice I can blame it on the humidity, not on my culinary skills. What I really got from this post was the urge to grab my wire cutters and snip away at my whisk... that part really looks like fun.
Sherry
I once watched Julia Child do this on her cooking show years and years ago for a yule log. It was and remains THE funniest television I have ever seen. I admire your courage, but ain't no way I'm doing this in my house! Hell no.
Cynthia
I know....Bwwwahahah! (not sure how that really goes). :)
Karen
HA! ~ karen
Cynthia
I had better change my ways, cos I just realised after checking the earlier photo of twirling it, it really is spun sugar. What an asshole I am.
Karen
Cynthia. You're an asshole. ~ karen!
danni
I can't remember which formula I used, but the thing that stuck with me was this..... when I went to retrieve the perfect golden/ambery spheres from the top of the washing machine, where I put them for safe keeping.... they had melted into sticky brown goo that looked like nothing so much as spilled honey. And I had wasted HOURS on them. Oh, one other thing I remember is that the next time I fooled with sugar, I made hard candy syrup and 'poured' letters for everyone's dessert for a dinner party. Yours Karen, would have had a giant "K" stabbed into it. Gorgeous, but when people stopped oohing and ahhing and tried to eat them, someone broke their letter and then stabbed it thru the roof of their mouth. The stuff is crazy sharp, like glass. I was cut off from the sugar arts by my husband, fearing lawsuits and ants.
Cynthia
I was going to write a smart comment about how you are cheating and I can tell that is a coil of copper wire in one of the photos....but I got scared you would say I am an asshole. BTW, I spell it arsehole, but what the hell would I know? I like asshole better and will promptly change my ways.
Gerri
Wow! The spun sugar looks so pretty and delightful and ethereal-looking! I just may try this with my bonus-kids so that I come off looking ultra-cool. Or sticky. One or the other. But hey, last year's Salted Trees in Mason Jars project was a huge hit with them, so I have the courage to try this too.
Jody
Bonus kids--I like that.
Pati Gulat
I call mine bonus kids too...until now I was the only one I knew who did it... :)