Celebrate the season by making the popular carnival food right in the comfort and convenience of your home. 

Last week, Japanese budget chain 3 Coins started selling a lineup of household goods themed around summer festivals, known as natsu matsuri in Japanese. The goods have a distinctively retro-looking design with mostly blue and white patterns, plus feature kanji that you’d likely see on lanterns and banners at a real summer festival such as 祭 (“festival”) and 氷 (“ice;” usually found near stands selling kakigori shaved ice).

A special part of the lineup includes two kitchen appliances for making some sweet treats. Now, we had already bought the Fruit Candy Maker (3,080 yen [US$20.80]) earlier in the week, but sadly, it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be and we promptly retired it. At the same time, we couldn’t help but wonder whether we should have chosen the Electric Cotton Candy Maker (3,520 yen) to bring home instead. The thought kept haunting us, so we inevitably made a return visit to our local store.

Most cotton candy makers online usually cost in the range of about 5,000 yen. Therefore, 3 Coin’s version was a relative bargain–but that was still a decent enough amount of money that we’d be irked if it didn’t work well. Therefore, we promptly set about assembling all of the parts according to the instructions booklet.

First, we removed the granulated sugar dish from its storage location on the base of the appliance.

Next, we placed the dish on top. It was a little tricky to get the alignment just right on top of the grill, so if you plan to make cotton candy with kids, this is a step that’s probably best done by adults.

Finally, we snapped the surrounding tray and side shield into place, and voila! It was ready to go.

We plugged the appliance in and flipped on the switch.

You need to let it warm up for about five minutes before use. While waiting, you can enjoy watching the sugar dish in the center rotate at a high speed.

When it was heated, we flipped the switch off momentarily to pour one spoonful of sugar (using the included measuring spoon) into the center of the dish…

…and watched as threads of sugar began to appear out of nowhere in the next few minutes. It was really working!

We held one of the included wooden skewers over the device and began to spin it, watching as the cotton candy quickly took shape in real time.

The finished product was like a fully formed cloud. Kids and adults alike would definitely get a kick out of making this at home.

We learned through trial and error that since the appliance is small, you have to be careful not to touch the spun cotton candy to the hot center dish or else it will melt instantly.

Thankfully, clean-up was also simple. Every part of the maker that the sugar touched could be easily removed and washed.

In other words, the Fruit Candy Maker couldn’t hold a skewer to its cousin the Electric Cotton Candy Maker.

By the way, on our second time using the device, we were able to make an even rounder, more cloud-like cotton candy.

Other items in 3 Coin’s summer festival series would make for fun and cheap Japanese souvenirs, so you may want to pick some up if you’ll be traveling there soon. If you want to experience the real deal of a Japanese summer festival as well, consider traveling to see some of the best fireworks in the whole country coming up in about two weeks.

Reference: 3 Coins
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