Power Poppers Fairy Floss Popping Candy

Fairy floss (cotton candy in North America, and candy floss elsewhere) in and of itself is a pretty simple confectionery. Colourings and flavours are added to spun sugar, resulting in a large, air-filled fluffball on a stick. It's also very light, with servings on a stick often weighing 30g or less. It's a product that is best fresh, but recently mass-produced fairy floss has become available. Here in Australia, we rarely see flavours outside strawberry, although you can occasionally find other flavours here and there.

AIT (Australian International Traders), a distributor, have recently introduced a fairy floss product made in China to the Australian lolly market under the name 'Power Poppers'. Two varieties are available: Fairy Floss Bubblegum' and 'Fairy Floss Popping Candy'. I'll be reviewing the Bubblegum version later this week.

Mass-manufactured fairy floss just doesn't compare to the fresh stuff, in my opinion. When stuffed into packaging, it loses a lot of its volume (which is where a lot of the appeal is for me), and if not carefully packaged, can harden and turn a bit icky. I've also never seen fairy floss (fresh or otherwise) with a product added to it. Wikipedia doesn't mention this either, so this might just be a whole new ball game.

Inside the foil packaging, we have a small, firmish handful of bright pink, strongly-scented fairy floss. The scent is truly ridiculous - I can smell it from outside the package. It's definitely strawberry, and will clear your sinuses if you're not careful! It's a brighter shade of pink than in the picture, similar to the pink on the wrapper.  It's a small amount of fairy floss, about the size of a child's clenched fist.

At first I was disappointed with the amount of popping candy that I found in the bottom of the package. There was barely a teaspoonful worth, just kicking around at the bottom. It wasn't until I gently tore apart the bundle of fairy floss for photos that I discovered a small void inside, that held more popping candy. The popping candy is in honking big pieces too, as you can see in the photo.

The strawberry flavour is quite evident, in both the floss and the popping candy. It's sweet but pleasant, a bit like the cheap hard lollies you can find in the $2 shop. There's no tang or kick to it, but then again the package isn't exactly making any claims as to the quality of their flavouring.

On finishing the fairy floss, I still had a large amount of popping candy at the bottom, so it was fun to tip all of that into my mouth at once. Good popping!