FIt must be quite an impertinence for star chefs, gourmets will shudder at the very idea. But for those who don’t like to cook or bake and sometimes burn fried eggs, there could be a real alternative: food prepared by a 3D printer. A click of the computer mouse is all it takes for the 3D printer to conjure up the most delicious meals, cakes and even tarts on the plate. Recipes and the way of preparation can be selected using a computer program, the ingredients are in bottles and are applied alternately layer by layer to the substrate via a nozzle.
A fine laser beam replaces the stovetop. Where it hits, the ingredients harden, similar to additive manufacturing of complex mechanical parts. What sounds like science fiction has the potential to revolutionize cooking and baking for roboticist Hod Lipson from Columbia University in New York. Everyone can now select the meal individually according to their needs, for example due to a diet or intolerances, and adjust the ingredients accordingly. Parents of small children or single mothers or fathers who have little time to cook would also benefit, Lipson tries to make the food from the 3D printer tasty for us.
The engineer, who caused a stir in 2005 with the first printed chocolate cake, presents with colleagues in the Nature Journal “Science of Food” variations of multi-layer cheese cakes as the crowning glory, printed with millimeter precision and only 30 minutes. The researchers offer seven ingredients: peanut butter, Nutella, banana puree, strawberry jam, cherry juice and icing, as well as a graham cracker paste. The latter is based on American biscuits; when hardened, it serves as a base, border and intermediate layers. Using a computer model, Lipson and his colleagues designed the cake and optimized the proportions of ingredients so the product doesn’t collapse under its weight. The researchers started eight experiments. Three of them were complete failures. Of the remaining five, however, only one variant corresponded to the idea of Lipson and his colleagues.
Shortly before the editorial deadline, it was not possible to find out how the result tasted. The 3D printer may one day actually replace the Thermomix and the microwave – but the joy of a delicious, home-baked cake certainly will not.