Creating Food With 3D Printer

Researchers at the Cornell Creative Machines Lab are experimenting with 3-D food printers, envisioning them as the next It appliance for restaurants and home kitchens digital gastronomy, if you will. Using edible inks and digital blueprints, their latest printer, Fab@Home, can make precise, novel treats, from perfectly shaped Austrian sugar cookies to scallops shaped liked miniature homes or space shuttles, if thats more your speed.

“It’s digital cooking,” says Jeffrey Lipton, a mechanical engineering PhD student who worked alongside molecular gastronomy pioneer Dave Arnold of the French Culinary Institute.

The technology is nascent, and so far only produces raw food, but it is conceivable that a printer would also cook the material as it prints, said Hod Lipson, head of the Cornell lab. The ingredients so far have mostly been soft foods such as pesto, cheese, chocolate, frosting, peanut butter and cookie dough. The food printer also has implications for healthy eating, said Mr. Lipson, meanwhile, sees downloadable menus: You can record a well-known chefs recipe and have that be made at home for you, on the spot.

In the end it would benefit the professional culinary domain primarily in two respects: by lending new artistic capabilities to the fine dining domain, and also by extending mass-customization capabilities to the industrial culinary sector.

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