Beijing, March 22 (Reporter Sun Zifa) How effective is 3D printed food for the future? A new robotics perspective article published in Springer Nature's professional academic journal npj-food science shows a digital cooking method to make cheesecake using a 3D printing system of edible food ink, including peanut butter, Nötoic chocolate sauce and strawberry jam.
Customized printer for cake printing (image from paper). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
Peanut butter is placed on graham crackers (image by Jonathan Blutinger). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
The authors believe that accurately printing multi-layer foods enables the creation of more customized foods, improves food safety, and makes it easier for users to control the nutritional content of food.
Strawberry jam is spread over whole grain crackers (image by Jonathan Blutinger). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
According to the paper, many cooking methods, such as using grills, ovens, stoves, and microwaves, require some manual operation and work to heat a uniform entire area, which can lead to inefficient heating. 3D food printing is just getting started, but it may become more and more popular due to its advantages such as customization and convenience.
The blue laser sears the whole wheat crackers on top of the dessert printed with 7 ingredients (image by Jonathan Blutinger). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
To demonstrate the potential of 3D food printing, Jonathan David Blutinger, the paper's corresponding author and first author of Columbia University, and his colleagues and collaborators experimented with printing a variety of cheesecake designs, combining 7 key ingredients: whole grain crackers, peanut butter, nutellar chocolate sauce, mashed banana, strawberry jam, cherry garnel and frosting. They found that the most successful designs and construction principles were similar, using whole-wheat biscuits as the base ingredient for each layer of the cake. Peanut butter and Neptoyi serve best as support layers to form potholes to accommodate softer ingredients (banana and jam).
7 ingredients for printing (image by Jonathan Blutinger). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
A final rendering of a dessert printed with 7 ingredients (image by Jonathan Blutinger). Photo courtesy of Springer Nature
The authors conclude that laser cooking and 3D printing of food allow chefs to concentrate aromas and textures on millimeter-scale scales to create new food experiences. These technologies have the potential to provide nutritious, convenient, and cost-effective cooking opportunities because they use high-energy, targeted light for high-resolution, customized heating. (End)