- This is 16K strands of dragon beard's candy guys.
Look at that.
(playful music)
Hi, I'm Inga.
Today we're gonna try and make this super cool looking
cotton candy called dragon beard's candy.
This candy originated from China,
apparently ancient emperor's used to eat this.
Think of cotton candy that's made purely from your hands.
That's pretty cool.
Success rate is super, super low,
but we're still gonna give it a shot.
Let's do it.
The ingredients are pretty simple.
It's basically just sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, and water.
Sugar, water, corn syrup, vinegar, maltose.
You put them all in this pot, boil them up until
it becomes this sticky, gooey liquid
that we're then gonna shape into candy.
I also got burn relief gel because I wasn't sure
if I would burn myself.
So one step at a time.
If I remember correctly what I was supposed to do.
So sugar first.
Ooh hoo hoo.
Get every single bit.
Maltose.
Super gooey.
That's what it looks like.
From the videos and the recipes I saw,
I'm supposed to turn this on and then not stir it.
If you stir it, the sugar's gonna crystallize,
and if it crystallizes, you're screwed.
And that is a big no-no.
Oh my god.
Okay, so now I'm supposed to just leave it running.
I'm not the most patient person in the world, so.
(light music)
^It's about 225, looks like a little volcano.
You can only look at it, which is what I'm doing.
Looking at it.
But it's so slow.
I think I might have cooked it for too long.
It's 277, I don't know if we're screwed.
I'm gonna pour this into this silicon mold.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Oh that was not a good idea.
We're going to let it cool down for a little bit.
We are back in business.
The cornstarch is to keep it from sticking together.
Here we go.
I think it's ready.
Ooh, look at that.
This is what it looks like right now.
Very, very pliable.
We're gonna poke a hole through this,
cover it in starch, ooh.
That feels nice.
We're gonna shape it into a ring.
Keep doing this, and then twisting it.
One ring becomes two rings, two rings become four rings,
up until we get to 16,000 rings.
If that sounds really ambitious, it is.
Look at so far.
Ahh.
Twist it, now we have two rings.
So we're gonna keep pulling it.
(laughing)
Oh my god.
In the trash.
Guess that means we're gonna do another one.
Here we go.
Nope.
This means we have to come back, redo the sugar.
All right.
Next time, you can cut.
It's after work now, I'm just gonna keep on doing this.
Can't just give up.
My dad didn't bring me up like that.
I cooked the sugar less this time.
Last time I couldn't even get it this big.
Feels good.
^Stretchy, stretchy.
^One to two.
^Two to four.
^Ooh, look at that.
^It's stretching, there's no cracks.
^I think it might actually work.
^Four plus four.
^Eight to 16.
^It definitely feels very flexible.
^32, right?
^Oh my god, this is so much better than the first batch.
^Maybe they just don't want me to succeed in front of people.
^32 plus 32 is 64.
^It looks like it's going somewhere!
^128.
^Pulling it, 256.
^Looks like it's working.
^512.
^1,024.
^You see that, I couldn't even get it past two last time.
^2,048.
^This is really working my muscles, 4096.
^8,192.
So close.
Last one.
16,384.
^Yo, yeah.
16K, I did it.
Wha.
Should we go one more?
32,768.
There it is.
Look like a dragon's beard?
This looks like a 400 thread count
^Egyptian cotton bed sheet.
Now we're gonna fill it with peanut filling.
Oh, I'm so excited.
It looks like whiskers.
Take a strand, put it in here.
There's a tiny little bite right there.
Does somebody wanna try this?
- It's really good.
- Yes.
I did it, I feel like I just climbed a mountain
and I'm at the very top.
People who are professionals at this,
what they do really is amazing.
So that's another thing off of my bucket list.
I've made the impossible cotton candy from ancient China.
Let's see what we can do next.
(playful music)