Food of The Future is 3D Printing and Laser Spot Heating [VIDEO]

Columbia University engineers have found a way to create “solid architectures” from multi-component confectionery products using 3D printing. To do this, they equipped the 3D printer with blue and infrared lasers, each of which heated the dish in layers.

“A cheesecake is the best we can showcase right now, but a printer can do so much more. We can print chicken, beef, vegetables and cheese. Anything that can be turned into a paste, liquid or powder,” said Jonathan Blutinger, an engineer at the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia in New York.

After a series of failures, the researchers finally succeeded in creating a cheesecake out of seven different ingredients: biscuit paste, peanut butter, strawberry jam, Nutella, banana puree, cherry icing, and regular icing. All the ingredients were individually poured into containers of a 3D printer, and then applied layer by layer in a predetermined sequence, as in the automated production of additives, and heated as necessary. The base of the cheesecake consisted of crushed cracker crumbs mixed with butter – the main secret of the stability of the created structure.

Scientists believe that in the near future, a 3D printer may become part of conventional kitchen equipment. And if not in restaurants, then on board the orbital stations.