Unitasker Wednesday: Cotton candy maker

Cotton Candy MakerSome foods weren’t meant to be made at home. Cotton candy isn’t one of them. I can’t think of a better treat to make at home than a giant ball of sugary goodness that is cotton candy. You can wait until you make your way to an amusement park, baseball game, circus, or carnival, but why wait? You can pick up your very own Cotton Candy Maker and enjoy a sugar cloud whenever you want.

This versatile machine looks like it can handle both kinds of cotton candy, blue and pink. It has so many other features that I’ll just highlight a couple:

  • Ideal for bringing carnival flavor and fun in to the home
  • Antique-cart style design looks good on any counter

Now if only I could track down my very own Kitchen Carnival.

**Each week, the Unitasker Wednesday column humorously pokes fun at the unnecessary, single-use items that manage to find their way into our homes.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by Matt on May 7, 2008 | Comments |

24 comments posted

  1. Posted by Celeste - 05/07/2008

    Is it still a unitasker if you mix pink and blue crystals in the bowl to make purple cotton candy? ;o)

    I’ve made cotton candy at a festival and it’s the messiest thing you would ever want to do. You can buy cotton candy in a bag throughout the year in places that sell candy; it tastes no different than freshly made and lasts forever in an air-tight bag, so I guess your spending on this would be for the spectacle and experience of it all.

  2. Posted by Corrie - 05/07/2008

    Here’s a unitasker for you: an electric martini maker: http://macys.weddingchannel.co.....=300000613

  3. Posted by Erin Doland - 05/07/2008

    @Corrie — We’ve featured it already :) One of my favorites:

    http://unclutterer.com/2007/12.....ni-shaker/

  4. Posted by Sheryl - 05/07/2008

    Mmmmm! Can’t wait to have some of that wholesome, artificially-colored, sugary, teeth-rotting, health-damaging goodness in my very own home!

  5. Posted by QL Girl - 05/07/2008

    lol. A friend of mine actually has this. She LOVES cotton candy though!! I’d say its worth it for her, but just the thought of having to make space for it in the kitchen exhausts me. I don’t complain when we go to her house though. =]

    As far as unitasking goes…maybe you can use the bowl for chips when its not in use?

  6. Posted by Kimberly - 05/07/2008

    Ahahahha! We had one of these when I was a kid. We used it once at home (probably Christmas day or whatever day it came as a gift) and then used it a few more times at church festivals. Then it was probably sold at a garage sale. I still don’t understand how it turned crystals into strands of sugar.

  7. Posted by Catherine - 05/07/2008

    OMG. I can’t find a good place for our salad spinner, and we use it almost every day. A cotton candy maker?? Just NO.

  8. Posted by lorenzbutterfly - 05/07/2008

    LOL, I actually got one of these for my mother last Christmas. Certainly a unitasker, and I don’t know if she ever used it (i believe it was missing the sugar). However, she adores cotton candy, and the sentiment meant a lot to her.

  9. Posted by Springpeeper - 05/07/2008

    You hit the nail on the head with “some foods weren’t meant to be made at home”.
    Being able to make this at home makes it ordinary, not the special treat that it should be, and this takes away much of the enjoyment.

  10. Posted by Sandy - 05/07/2008

    @Corrie — Mr Martini at BehindTheBarShow.com just featured this, too, on his podcast this week — these folks are getting a lot of press for their silly unitasker! :-)

    @Catherine — think you could bi-task for the salad spinner WITH the cotton candy maker? A little nice romaine…with that Carnival Taste? ;-) Or “green” cotton candy? (OK, revolting I will quit now)

  11. Posted by Katherine - 05/07/2008

    We rented a professional heavy-duty cotton candy maker for my brother’s 13th birthday party. It only cost, like, 20 dollars to rent, and was a huge hit. The next day we took it back to the party supply shop, and presto, no clutter!

  12. Posted by Sarah - 05/07/2008

    I was totally going to rush right out and buy one, but I OD’d on Pixie Stix and passed out.

  13. Posted by Michael - 05/07/2008

    @Kimberly The machine melts the sugar into a liquid then blows air through it to create the tasty cobwebs. It’s not unlike the fine strands you get when using a hot glue gun or when you eat a really cheesy pizza.

  14. Posted by Sandy - 05/07/2008

    @Michael …or, for those nasty Domino’s Pizzas, for when they use the hot glue gun to spray the cheese ON the pizza….

  15. Posted by Brooke - 05/07/2008

    Ok, I actually have this. My husband LOVES cotton candy. I had to do it. And since we’ve had it, we’ve used it about 3 times in the last 4 years. And it’s a Unitasker because you can get 17 home projects done while you’re waiting for one sugary cone to fill! And it’s doing a great job keeping our garage shelving unit warm. Cheers to the Cotton Candy Maker!

  16. Posted by Kat - 05/07/2008

    I would LOVE one of these, but it’s actually quite huge and I have nowhere to put it. Plus, it’s not the same if I have to do the work.

  17. Posted by Dee - 05/07/2008

    I can’t believe for a mere 150 bucks I can get plastered on martinis while I make cotton candy, that a deal :-)!

  18. Posted by Ally - 05/08/2008

    A real “Kitchen Carnival” kind of things actually exists! I think it was sold by Harriet Carter, Miles Kimball, or Walter Drake. If I had a use for it, I totally would have bought it!

  19. Posted by Megan - 05/08/2008

    Hey, I can see an extra feature you forgot to mention. No matter how messy your kids can be, you can use this to greatly increase their ability to make every surface in your home sticky in record time. How bored would you be without all that to clean up?

  20. Posted by Elizabeth - 05/09/2008

    Thank goodness for the astricks at the end - I’m a new reader and was thinking, “What?!?!” Now I know, very funny. :>

  21. Posted by Sandy - 05/12/2008

    Mother’s Day Unitaskers…

    Hey Erin — so this mother’s day I made my well-loved fruit salad, which involves not ONE but TWO unitaskers –1. cherry pitter and
    2. mango pitter.

    I could NEVER make this salad if I didn’t have these trusty unitaskers….even tho my husband rolls his eyes at their little Unitasking Selves…. :-)

  22. Posted by Caroline - 08/19/2008

    sadly i had this in my freshman dorm and it overheated and became a fire hazard so i had to throw it away.

  23. Posted by Craig - 08/19/2008

    We had one of these. I said “had” because coincidentally I dropped it off at Goodwill on the way to work today. I just happened to be looking at Unitasker archives and it caught my eye.

    My wife rcvd this as a prize for something or other when she was selling Tupperware. (another huge amount of clutter that disappeared after she got a job in a clothing store) Anyway, she used it once with the kids when it arrived and then it disapppeared into the attic. I was thinking about getting rid of it and wanted to see how it worked. It DOES work, and it makes cotton candy. The biggest problem was that I made some for my son while he finished a chore and when he came to eat it, the light fluffy strings had turned into gloppy, shriveled, hard sugar crystals.

    Stick to the carnival cotton candy.

  24. Posted by hilton - 11/26/2008

    This one from Japan does not need sugar or coloring, it uses normal hard candy. Cool!
    http://japansugoi.com/wordpres.....e-wataame/

Subscribe to this entry's comments

Post a comment