You're Missing Out On The Best Cotton Candy

It's really hard not to be happy with a large, fluffy cloud of cotton candy in your hand. For my 6-year-old son, that first magical moment happened only a few weeks ago.

We were at an outdoor festival in the small town of Plymouth, Wisconsin when we found it: the holy grail. Organic cotton candy that is gluten-free, dye-free, kosher, and vegan.

In flavors like honey, caramel, marshmallow, apple cider, and apple bourbon, this wasn't some run-of-the-mill carnival offering in shades of Pepto-Bismol pink and Smurf blue. Instead, there on the back of a pushcart tricycle sat Spun Boutique's cotton candy machine spinning white, fluffy puffs of sugar. In less than a minute, a cone of airy confection appeared out from under the snow globe cover.

My son could barely contain his excitement. It was his first cotton candy.

"Whoa, it's as big as my head," he squealed. "This is going to be so epic." Fortunately, the taste lived up to his expectations.

After taking a pinch off his cone, I couldn't agree more. Spun's product is sweet, but not overpoweringly so. Unlike other cotton candy, it doesn't have a chemical-infused aftertaste that skews syrupy and almost metallic. Instead, it was a perfect piece of confectionery—a delightful, unexpected surprise.

Dressed in matching tan shirts and white aprons, the owners of Spun Boutique, Chad and Alyssa Boutelle, emote warmth, friendliness, and a generally badass steampunk vibe. In reality, this is a side hustle for the parents of two, who work in Wisconsin's Sheboygan Area School District. It started during COVID, when Chad purchased a cotton candy machine to make the treat for his daughters.

"More and more packages from Amazon kept arriving," he says. "That's when my wife said, 'What are we doing?'" Soon, a business was born.

Looking for something more unique and sophisticated than the typical "pink and blue" cotton candy, they started sourcing organic, gluten-free, vegan, kosher-certified sugars from Spun Paradise.

"We have a lot of friends and family who have food allergies, are celiac, or prefer not to have dyes in their foods," says Alyssa Boutelle, an elementary school social worker. "We wanted to make sure that we didn't leave anybody out."

To get their cotton candy to festivals, the Boutelles custom-built their Icicle Tricycles pushcart in Oregon and had it freighted to Wisconsin. It's pedaled to local events with the cotton candy machine in tow.

"It's unique," Chad says. "It's helps people remember they got their cotton candy from a bicycle."

It's also distinctive, Boutelle says, because while traditional machines spin the sugars horizontally and require deep cleaning between flavors, this machine vertically shoots the cotton candy upward, avoiding cross-contamination and allowing each customer to choose their own flavor.

"A lot of the big commercial machines you see at county fairs can only do one flavor at a time, pink or blue," he says.

Many people don't realize what they are missing until they try organic cotton candy, which is extra big and fluffy. It's also white, or nearly white, because it contains no artificial dye.

"We've heard it all," Chad Boutelle says. "It looks like grandma's hair, Santa's beard, or there are wizards in our cart."

And since pretty much everyone has tried cotton candy at least once in their lives, customers already have a firm set of expectations for the product.

"We get a lot of people who are like, 'Oh, I'm not really a big cotton candy person,'" Chad says. But then they might try a bite of their child's cotton candy, "And then they want one. Because it's not that in-your-teeth gritty, artificial flavor. We're delighted to see how many adults actually enjoy it as well."

Unfortunately, Spun Boutique only makes organic cotton candy locally. But there are other places to buy organic cotton candy online, or you can source organic cane sugar and try making it yourself.

Dawn Reiss

It's not as hard as you think to make your own organic cotton candy at home. But it is messy, and you absolutely need the right equipment.

"Just buy a machine on Amazon, so it's easy to return," says Danna Eady, president of Spun Paradise, a family-owned organic cotton candy and sugar floss manufacturer. She started her company when she was trying to find dye-free treats for her kids who are allergic to red dye. To make it happen, she moved her family from California to Hawaii to start the company and launched in local farmers markets with flavors like pineapple, lychee, lilikoi (passion fruit), and watermelon.

Now based in Arizona, Eady sells her flavored organic sugar floss—granulated organic cane sugar mixed with organic flavoring that gets loaded into the cotton candy machine—directly to consumers, but in wholesale bulk online. At $45 for 5 pounds, it isn't cheap. But it makes about 150 cotton candy cones, and the sugar stays good for two to three years. Spun Paradise's flavors include marshmallow, vanilla, pumpkin spice, and gingerbread.

Eady's favorite mid-grade cotton candy machine is either the VIVO or the Vortex, both of which cost a few hundred dollars, and both of which come in pink.

Before making a batch, give the cotton candy machine enough time to heat up. "At least five to 10 minutes," says Eady. "It needs to be really hot." Otherwise, the sugars are just going to stick to the machine, and they won't produce cotton candy.But because cotton candy is made by instantly liquefying sugar, you have to be really careful of your fingers, and never overfill the machine.

The key to getting a fluffy cone? "Twirl as fast as you can with your cone," she says, "so it can stay even as it comes out."

Be mindful of the surrounding environment when preparing your batch. Make the cotton candy in as dry of an area as you can, since moisture in the air is going to make the cotton candy super dense. And choose your location wisely—the reason there's a bubble over the machine is so that spun sugar doesn't go flying everywhere.

When you're done with a machine, let it continue to spin for about 2 minutes to burn off any remaining sugar.

For those with allergies, you should always double-check ingredient labels on the components of homemade cotton candy. "There are a lot of companies that call themselves organic, but don't carry the actual certificate, which is illegal," says Eady. "They use organic sugar, but then they flavor and color it with dyes and artificial flavors," she says. "It can get confusing."

For more tips on homemade cotton candy, read Eady's blog on the topic, and watch Eady's video on Making Cotton Candy Jack O' Lanterns here.

Trying to buy organic cotton candy online feels a like searching for a rainbow: You know it exists, but it's not the easiest to find. Eady says that's because most organic cotton candy vendors make their sales in person.

One of the few places I could find is The Sugar Mamas SC, a South Carolina-based company and sells its allergen-friendly organic, artificial, dye-free, gluten-free, certified vegan, nut-free cotton candy online. Like Spun Boutique, Sugar Mamas is supplied by Spun Paradise.

"A lot of customers will say you can taste the flavors, that it doesn't just taste like chemicals, since the regular cotton candy is typically filled with chemicals," says Brittany Liszak, co-founder of The Sugar Mamas SC. "It actually tastes like strawberry or whatever it's supposed to taste like."

Liszak, a mom of five, started the business with another mom, Kristen Sheehan, to bring in extra income. "Two of my kids can't have artificially colors because they get massive headaches," Liszak says. "I wasn't going to sell a product they can't have."

The Sugar Mamas SC sells "adult" flavors like champagne, piña colada, root beer float, pumpkin spice, and strawberry lemonade as well as kid-friendly strawberry, cherry, vanilla, and pineapple. I purchased a few taster bags. At $6 each, they were much smaller than I imagined; after a few bites everything was gone. But it was a good way to taste a lot of different flavors. If you know what you like, purchase the $10 tub that is more like what a cotton candy cone might be.

Despite all the choices, both my son and I preferred the vanilla, whose light and neutral flavor appealed to us. It was simple yet delicious, and I also liked the root beer float. For me, the champagne was a bust. It was non-alcoholic and had a funky aftertaste that wasn't anything reminiscent of a glass of bubbly.

We also tried Parker's Real Maple Cotton Candy. It's certified organic, made with organic cane sugar and maple sugar. The flavor is sweet, with richness on the backend, and at $5.99 for a 2-ounce tub, it's cheaper than The Sugar Mamas SC. However, there's only one flavor available. It's too strong for my son, but for me, the subtle maple flavor wasn't too overpowering.

Regardless of which company you purchase from, or which kiosk you happen upon in the wild, it's encouraging to know that a classic like cotton candy is getting the modern makeover it deserves, and that more kids will soon be able to enjoy this treat than ever before.

"It is rare that you hand someone a cotton candy cone and they don't smile," Liszak says. "People can't accept cotton candy grumpy."