SMART NEWS

Scientists 3D Printed a Slice of Cake

The seven-ingredient recipe shows potential for the future of making food
with this technology, researchers say

Will Sullivan

March 22, 2023 4:32 p.m.

Scientists have used 3D printers to design a range of useful, attractive

or downright strange objects. Consumers can purchase 3D-
printed bicycle frames and chairs, a replica of Thing from “The
Addams Family” and even figurines of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as
an octopus or a lobster.

Scientists are now 1 STRETCHING the already expansive boundaries of

3D printing into another, more delicious realm: cheesecake.

A team recently used a 3D printer to make an edible slice of cake,

they reported Tuesday in the journal NPJ Science of Food.

Their printer-friendly recipe requires seven ingredients—graham

cracker paste, peanut butter, strawberry jam, Nutella, banana puree,
cherry drizzle and frosting. The technology built the slice by squeezing
each element 2. INSIDE of a syringe in thin lines, forming the layered
dessert.

Of course, the success of a cake depends on its taste. Whether or not

someone would enjoy this particular slice might depend on their
affinity 3. TO graham crackers—the graham cracker paste made up
more than 70 percent of the dessert.

“When you bite 4. INTO it, you kind of feel the flavours hit you in
different waves,” Jonathan Blutinger, a mechanical engineer at
Columbia University and first author of the new paper, tells New
Scientist’s Jeremy Hsu. “And I think that’s a function of the layering
inside of the actual structure.”

“It definitely tasted like something I hadn’t tried before,” Blutinger tells
the Guardian’s Ian Sample, referring to earlier, collapsed attempts at
the slice. “I rather enjoyed it, but it’s not a conventional mix. We’re not
Michelin chefs.”

Blutinger’s team got the ingredients for their cake from a local
convenience store in New York City. The researchers mashed bananas
with a fork to create a puree, and they mixed water, butter and
graham crackers in a food processor to form the paste.

Early versions of the cake relied on a lot less graham cracker paste—it
only 5. USED up about a third of the slice in these recipes. But as the
printer constructed these early slices, the confections quickly
collapsed when layers of wetter ingredients were added.

After several failed attempts, the tech-savvy bakers decided to add

layers of graham cracker paste throughout the slice. They created
wells from the sturdy, drier ingredients, with walls that were thick on
the bottom and thinner on top. Then, they deposited the wetter
ingredients inside the wells, so they were supported.

With these changes, the next slices maintained their structural

integrity. The final step was using a blue laser to brown the top
graham cracker layer. In total, it took 30 minutes to make the slice.

The team’s cheesecake is not the first attempt to make 3D-printed

food. One company is working on 3D-printed plant-based meat, while
a pop-up restaurant has offered 3D-printed meals, according to CNN’s
Jackie Wattles. NASA has been investigating 3D-printed food for
astronauts to eat on long trips in space, per USA Today’s Mike Snider.
“The cheesecake is the best thing we can showcase right now, but the
printer can do a 6. BUNCH lot more,” Blutinger tells the Guardian. “We
can print chicken, beef, vegetables and cheese. Anything that can be
turned into a paste, liquid or powder.”

In the future, people might be able to buy 3D printers for cooking in

their homes, but the price could run to $1,500, per New Scientist.
Crucially, though, these printers would also need recipes to function.

“If this [technology] were to hit the market, it’s like having an iPod
without any MP3 files,” Blutinger tells CNN. “So there needs to be a
place where you can download recipes, create your own recipes and
get some inspiration for what you can actually do with this machine in
order for it to really 7. TAKE off in a big way.”

Researchers say in a statement that 3D printing could help with meal

planning and might make food more sanitary by reducing human
handling of it.

Andrew Feenberg, a philosopher of technology at Simon Fraser

University in Canada who did not contribute to the research, doesn’t
foresee such devices 8. TAKING over people’s homes, per
the Guardian. “It might turn out to be more useful in restaurants and
cafeterias where the loading of ingredients and software programs
could be done during slack hours,” he tells the publication.