Up till now, 3D printing has been largely of interest to total geeks – but a company has just unveiled a 3D printer which can create chocolate biscuits on demand.
Now they’ve got our attention.
The printer downloads biscuit blueprints from the internet, then ‘prints out’ treats in sizes up to eight inches by six – enough for a really satisfying family-sized gingerbread man.
The only downer about the £1,300 machine, shown off at Las Vegas’s Consumer Electronics Show this week, is that you can’t devour the chocolate titbits immediately.
Users have to bake them afterwards – it spits out morsels onto a tray and then you bake and eat.
Biscuit fiends will even be able to submit their own creations to share with other printer users – although the company’s in-house foodies will vet recipes before adding them to the database accessed via the device’s six-inch touchscreen.
Roughly the size of an all-in-one printer, the XYZPrinting 3D food printer includes a 5-inch touch screen and prints out cookable food in layers ranging from .8 to 6.4 mm, with a maximum print size of 7.8 in. by 5.9 in. by 5.9 in.
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NASA is working on a similar, even more hi-tech machine – a 3D food printer for use on long-haul space flights, such as missions to Mars.
The technology is sufficiently ‘ready’ that it’s already been used to make a ‘printed’ pizza.
The machine, made by Anjan Contractor, uses powdered, freeze-dried ingredients packed with micro-nutrients, and can personalise nutrition plans for each astronaut via a modified RepRap 3D printer.
At present, NASA uses its own packaged, ready-to-heat foods, which are less healthy than the ‘printed’ food is hoped to be.
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