Awesome Sugar

Joseph Marr specializes in sculptures made out of sugar. As his profile with Great Big Story reveals, his edible creations often invert the stereotype of the eccentric artist. Joseph is absolutely baffled that people would lick and eat his works when they’re out in public. But he does love the interactive aspect of his material, as evidenced by his latest piece.

Most cotton candy is produced by spinning heated sugar in a special appliance until it forms thin strands. But this talented candy maker shows how a traditional Chinese cotton candy can be made by spinning hot, caramelized sugar in the air and inserting a skewer of caramels in the middle to catch the candy floss.

Like many things on the internet, the cotton candy gun exists solely because nobody had done it before. Kevin Kohler, aka The Backyard Scientist experimented with various overly-complex methods to fire a molten mixture of sugar, water, and food coloring, ultimately realizing that the simplest approach is often the best.

Just Born has been cranking out Mike and Ike candies since 1940. The Food Network’s Unwrapped 2.0 took a tour of their Pennsylvania factory for a look at how the chewy candies are made. They’re produced from sugar, corn syrup, and starch poured into molds, slow-baked, tumbled with colors and flavors, then glazed to a shine.

Lofty Pursuits is known for its impressive candy-making operation. For their latest video, they decided to let the candy do its own talking, capturing the sound of its Shamrock hard candies being cracked apart, shaken, and mixed in preparation for sale. When they got to the blue stuff, all we could think of was Breaking Bad.

Even if you have a serious sweet tooth, you can’t really subsist on sugar. What If explores what might happen to your body and mind if you tried to survive for a month, dining entirely on sugar. While sugar provides energy, the lack of protein and other nutritional essentials would almost certainly do you in.

Did you know that the chemical energy released by burning a marshmallow can be three times more than an equivalent mass of TNT? MinuteEarth dives into these two very different chemical reactions and explains why marshmallows don’t blow up when ignited.

Who says cotton candy has to taste like cotton candy? The folks at Chocolate Storybook sure don’t, and they make the fluffy stuff in flavors like cinnamon bun, buttered popcorn, atomic fireball, pina colada, birthday cake, root beer, peach, and even jalapeño.

Working with molten hot sugar is one of the most daunting tasks in the kitchen, but international pastry instructor Amaury Guichon makes it look easy, as he shows off the technique he uses to create a perfectly smooth dome of the sweet stuff. Also, check out his incredible, edible samurai.

There aren’t many things better on this earth than chocolate and sugar. By mixing cane sugar with orange cacao, chili, cinnamon & allspice, chef Suzi Sheffield lets you add a delicious hint of sweet and spicy chocolate to any dish, sweet or savory.