Edible food paper. Is there edible paper? What printer do you need for edible printing?

Modern technologies do not stand still, and today you will no longer surprise anyone with all kinds of computers, gadgets, computer technology and so on. But not everyone knows that a special food printer has already been invented, thanks to which the culinary art has sharply developed.

What is a food printer?

Enough large number culinary experts don’t even know what this device is, how it works, or how to use it. It is worth noting that today there are many different models that do food printing. Food Canon printer is one of best options among these products. In structure, it resembles a regular printing device, only specially modernized for unique paper. The printing process is carried out using specific edible inks.

By and large, all food printers can be divided into two categories: for industrial production and for home. In the first case, quite expensive devices are used, mainly of Italian origin, and they produce very high-quality images with good printing speed. In the second case, these are ordinary printers that have been converted for food printing; they are much cheaper, and the image quality is also at a fairly high level. They can be used at home or in small industries.

How does the printing process work?

In fact, the printing process itself is completely no different from the usual one. To create an edible image, you need to follow a few simple steps:

1. Connect your food printer to home computer or laptop.
2. Make sure there is food grade ink in the printer and that all colors are filled correctly in the cartridges.
3. Insert food paper into the printer. There are two types of it on the CIS market: rice and sugar. This step needs to be taken special attention: insert only straight paper, without bends, and also check whether the sheets are stuck together. Otherwise, they may get stuck in the device and damage it.
4. If printing is being done for the first time, or it has not been done for a long period of time, it is recommended to do a test print and look at the suitability of the food paint.
5. Select the desired image. All pictures can be edited on your computer using various image processing programs. For example, Photoshop, Picasa, GIMP or other programs.
6. After processing the image, it must be sent for printing.
7. The last stage is inserting the image into the culinary masterpiece. Often, images that can be eaten are used on cakes and various desserts, but no one can cancel their imagination, and you can safely experiment.

Pay attention! Never use a conventional printer that has been used before for edible printing, such experiments can seriously harm your health.

On average, a food printer has a print speed of 40 seconds per A4 page.

Edible paper

Edible printer paper is made only from natural ingredients and is intended specifically for printing. The most popular size is the classic A4 (21 by 24 cm). Depending on the type, paper has different thickness and taste, it can also have different color and texture. But sometimes the sizes can be smaller: A5 and A6. However, this is rather an exception to the rule. If necessary, the sheet can be carefully cut into two parts and only one of them can be used.

Types of paper you can eat

There are some types of sheets:

• Rice paper. It is considered one of the most popular types and is made from rice starch, vegetable oil and water. It is worth noting that it is almost tasteless and can be used in almost any branch of cooking. This type of paper comes in different thicknesses, but thin is the most pleasant, although it is much more expensive.
• Sugar paper for food printer. This type is more expensive and of higher quality, it better conveys the entire color gamut. Such sheets are thinner, unlike rice sheets, but at the same time have better density. The taste of paper is sweetish, so it is often used in confectionery.
• Shocktransfer. The required image is printed on such sheets and applied to the melted chocolate. After some time, the image is completely transferred to its surface. You can also fill the image with melted chocolate and after a while remove the film, after which only the picture will remain.

Food Printing Ink

Edible printer ink is the main ingredient in the entire composition, because the final image will depend on its quality. They are made in a special way to fit well on edible paper. The process of selecting this material must be taken extremely seriously. It is best to purchase paint from well-known European brands. It is necessary to understand that not each of them is suitable for a specific printer model.

Edible ink consists of natural and artificial ingredients. Most paints have a sweetish taste due to some food additives. When preparing culinary dishes, this factor must be taken into account.

Due to the fact that over time the viscosity of the ink decreases slightly, it settles on various elements of the printer, so from time to time it is recommended to flush the system with a special liquid to care for the device.

Food 3D printer

The operating principle of such a printer is somewhat similar to a conventional inkjet machine. Only in this case, not ink is used, but various food ingredients: chocolate, caramel, etc.

IN modern devices recipes are already stored in memory, and a person can only load the necessary ingredients into the tanks and select the desired program. It is also possible to store your own recipes in the printer’s memory.

When the printing process starts, the ingredients layer by layer (as in a conventional printer) fall onto a special platform, where the future product is formed. Thanks to the low temperature, the same chocolate instantly hardens on the future culinary masterpiece, it does not spread and holds the required shape. If the dish is made, for example, from biscuit dough, then after shaping the product it is baked and cooled.

Modern 3D printers

Technologies do not stand still, and recently models have begun to appear that can produce not only confectionery products, but also any other. There are already devices that use printing to create pizzas, ravioli, pastas and much more.

The most important thing is that a person can independently regulate the supply of the necessary ingredients. Thanks to this, new and completely unique recipes are born.

Printers are equipped with special cartridges, which are placed in several tiers. All cartridges contain the necessary ingredients, crushers, mixers and other devices.

What printer do you need for edible printing?

If a person wants to produce edible printing at home, then he does not need a special food printer. You just need to visit any store household appliances and buy a new regular one inkjet printer. You also need to buy a separate set of unfilled cartridges, which will be sold in sealed packaging.

Cartridges with regular ink must not be inserted into the new printer, otherwise it will immediately become unsuitable for the described food printing. You shouldn’t trust people who promise to “clean” a used printer. The ink is very toxic and will definitely harm anyone who eats the image printed on edible paper.

Using a regular sterile syringe, draw up edible ink and insert it into the appropriate nozzles. Then do a test print. It is worth understanding that there is no need to reflash the printer; it is ideal for printing on rice or sugar paper. You should not fall for the tricks of scammers who say that the printer needs to be re-flashed for edible printing.

Conclusion

A food printer is a very new and unusual trend in cooking. Thanks to this, the art of cooking becomes even more interesting and original. After all, with the help of a regular printer you can create incredible edible photographs or decorate cakes and other culinary masterpieces with them.

Nowadays, it is not difficult to purchase food ink, paper, a food printer and start creating. Good luck!

Modern man It’s already difficult to surprise with anything, even in the culinary arts. But there are still some ingredients of dishes that arouse our genuine interest. This happens not only because of the unusual or piquant taste, but also because of the technology of their production. Such an unusual product in cooking can be considered edible paper, which is usually used in oriental cuisine.

What is edible paper and what is it eaten with?

Edible paper is a transparent, thin sheet made from rice flour, water and salt. Typically, such leaves are not eaten separately because they are tasteless (leave) and very low in calories. They try to make sheets of paper standard sizes. The most common sizes are 22 and 33 centimeters in diameter.

Where is this paper used, since it is tasteless and contains virtually no calories? Most often it is used to make rolls. Our people call them “spring” because of their light taste.

Also, rice paper, due to its slightly sweet taste and light structure, is often used in the manufacture of confectionery products. Cooks use it in two forms: dry and soaked. Dry rice paper has a hard structure, so it is sometimes used instead of waffle products. Once soaked, cooks can shape the paper into any convenient shape and add different dyes to it.

Cooking methods

The process of preparing edible paper is considered quite difficult and painstaking. According to custom, this is most often done by Asian women specially trained in this craft.

So, let's move on to consider the cooking process itself. The first step to preparing edible paper is to soak the rice in cold water for eight hours. This is followed by thorough washing of the rice and another soaking, but only in water with the addition of a small amount of salt.

As soon as the rice swells, it is crushed as thoroughly as possible using special large knives. Sometimes, for taste and variety, different mixtures are added to the crushed rice, which are prepared from black sesame, shrimp or cassava (only the roots are used).

After thoroughly grinding, the resulting mixture is poured onto a clean cloth, which is stretched over a pan of boiling water. The crushed rice is kept over the steam for only a few minutes and then it is transferred to a grate made of bamboo (possibly using another material). In this way the rice mixture is dried fresh air. As a result, the mixture dries out and thereby forms an edible, airy layer.

In a factory setting, the cooking process is very similar. The only difference is the production of paper using special equipment, as opposed to the tradition when it was always made only by hand. Special equipment greatly speeds up the production process, because it instantly dries and presses the rice mixture, so the paper does not need long drying in the fresh air.

If you wish, you can prepare similar sheets for your favorite dishes at home, spending only your strength and the lion’s share of patience. But in the end, you can surprise everyone and, of course, yourself with a purely hand-made dish.

Modern technologies are developing at a super-fast pace. Scientists have already brought many of the ideas of science fiction writers to life. Very soon the world will see interactive television, and everyone will be able to go on a space excursion for the weekend. The latest development technologists became edible paper. Read more about this miracle in the article.

What is it

Standard edible paper is very similar to a plain piece of paper. The texture is transparent or denser. It can be pure white or have a yellowish or grayish tint, depending on the components. The most common formats are thickness 0.4-0.7 mm, width or diameter depending on whether the leaf shape is rectangular or round, 22 cm or 33 cm. It is bland or slightly sweet in taste, practically without calories and odorless.

A little history

The first edible paper (nori) appeared in Japan almost four hundred years ago. Modern rice, waffle, sugar and other food paper appeared quite recently - at the end of the twentieth century.

In 2003, American chemist Tara McHugh presented to the world her new invention - edible wrapping paper in which you can wrap sandwiches, hamburgers and anything else, and then eat it along with the contents.

Other inventors immediately picked up the idea and began creating edible business cards, books, and advertisements.

What is edible paper made from?

Traditionally, the basis for preparing this product is water and salt. Tapioca is often used, a starch product obtained from the roots of the edible cassava plant, a valuable tropical plant.

Wafer paper is made from potato or rice starch, vegetable oil and water.

Edible sugar paper contains ingredients such as sugar or other sweeteners, molasses, sorbitol syrup, water, palm oil, food additives, emulsifiers and stabilizers, and modified cellulose.

IN lately inventors experiment with components, using specially processed vegetable or fruit and berry purees to prepare the product, adding flavorings and food coloring. The resulting edible paper is pink with strawberry flavor, greenish with broccoli, and orange with mango flavor.

Nori is a unique edible paper made from certain types of red algae. Asian cuisine has been using this original Japanese product for more than three hundred years.

Types of edible paper

Today there are the following types of edible paper:

• waffle;
• rice;
• sugar;
• glazed;
• shock transfer;
• vegetable;
• fruit and berry;
• nori

Where is the product used?

Edible paper is very widely used in cooking:

• for preparing rolls, rolls, pancakes, chips;
• edible photo printing for;
• for decorating various dishes;
• as packaging material;
• for the production of advertising brochures, business cards, even books.

Delicious food made from food paper

Rice paper is used to make “spring” rolls, which have a very light taste. The Vietnamese make nems from it - pancakes or filled rolls. The filling for rice paper can be very different, but minced pork, dried mushrooms, beans, carrots with herbs, and durum pasta are traditionally used.

Before use, the rice paper is moistened, then it is easily rolled into the desired shape. Then the pancakes are either fried (preferably in sesame oil) or eaten without heat treatment (then the filling should be ready to eat).

Japanese dishes are prepared from nori: mochi rice cakes, onigiri balls, classic rolls. All great popularity picks up nori decorated with laser designs. They also make wonderful chips from nori.

Photo printing

Printing on edible paper is gaining more and more fans. To do this, use waffle, rice or sugar paper. It is fed into a special inkjet printer for food printing, which uses food-grade ink made from dyes that are safe for health.

Most often, edible paper with printed pictures is used to decorate the top of the cake, pre-moistened with sweet syrup and greased with sugar glue, marzipan or mastic. To give the picture clarity, confectioners advise to grease the food sheet itself with glaze. This will also help prevent it from peeling off during storage or transportation.

Sugar edible paper for cakes allows you to get the brightest, clearest and highest quality picture.

After printing, the edible sheet must dry well at room temperature, or it must be placed in the freezer for ten seconds. Only after drying, you can decorate the cake with food paper with photo printing.

For manual artistic painting Glazed paper works best.

Artistic decoration of dishes

Food paper is used not only to decorate the top but also to decorate the sides. In this case, food gel, jelly glaze or mastic is used for fixation.

Wafer paper is best suited for decoration. Confectioners do not recommend decorating the sides of the cake with sugar paper, as it creates unwanted waves or unsightly bubbles.

You can also make any decorations from edible paper using scissors - Christmas trees, snowflakes, hearts and other festive tinsel. You just need to handle food paper more carefully than regular paper, try not to bend it.

Decorated sweets should not be kept in the freezer to avoid condensation, or in a humid room. In general, high humidity is extremely undesirable for decorations made from edible paper, including food photo printing.

Food packaging

Edible packaging paper is the latest innovation. The author of the idea is American chemist Tara McHugh. She introduced the world to packaging that could be eaten with its contents. At the same time, they can be tasteless so as not to disturb the composition of the main dish, or they can taste like seasoning, milk sauce, ketchup, mashed potatoes, strawberries, mango, etc.

Tara McHugh is confident that her invention is the future; it will help the world get rid of polyethylene, plastic and foil. However, there are a lot of buts: packaging is designed to protect the product from contamination and extend its shelf life. And who will monitor the expiration date of the food packaging itself? How to overcome the habit of buyers to touch goods with their hands? After all, then they will leave millions of microbes and elementary dirt on the food packaging.

In this regard, student from Kazan Ivan Zakharov went much further, who proposed using water-soluble, environmentally friendly materials rather than edible packaging. His revolutionary discovery is still at the experimental stage, but it is the future. It will take four hundred years for a simple plastic bag to decompose, but Zakharov’s film under the influence of water turns into jelly in a few hours, and after a day disappears without a trace.

Product range and prices

For serial and professional production For cakes, pastries and other sweets, we offer food printers, edible inks, and edible paper. The price for all these accessories is quite high:

For decoration home product You can purchase ready-made pictures on food paper. You can buy an edible photo quite inexpensively. Depending on the size, it can cost only 150 rubles. If you wish, you can order an edible print based on your own sketch.

How to make edible paper

This is a painstaking and complex process. In Asia, only women who are specially trained in this difficult craft are allowed to engage in this business. Making edible paper by hand consists of four steps:

Asian cuisine has many recipes in which a variety of seasonings are added to rice. The result is rice paper with a pungent or spicy taste.

Today food industry I have completely mastered the production of edible paper. All stages are automated, and using special equipment the process takes very little time.

To expand your list of cake decorating options, you'll need to master wafer paper techniques. You can quickly create an amazing variety of intricate cake decorations using wafer paper. Make paper flowers like ranunculus, peony and open roses. Create breathtaking pictures and complex designs in a simple way. You can even use wafer paper for the decoupage method and make a creative, one-of-a-kind cake.

WAFFLE PICTURES FOR CAKE

You can make waffle pictures for cakes yourself. It's not difficult, but you will need special tools and ingredients: wafer paper, a special printer, as well as ink for a food printer. With all this you can print any image to your taste. But if the mentioned accessories are not available, they can be purchased in our online store.

In order for the waffle picture to fit as organically as possible into the finished confectionery, it is deliberately devoid of taste and smell. After placing the waffle picture on the cake, the paper is saturated with cream and acquires the same smell and taste. In order for the product with a picture to look complete, after installing the paper with the picture, it is best to cover it with a transparent or almost transparent substance.

Wafer paper is the most popular among confectioners; it is easy to use and not very demanding on storage conditions.

Advantages of thin wafer paper:
+ Good color rendition
+ Price
+ neutral taste (wafer taste)

But there are also disadvantages:
- slight transparency
- there is no way to fold the paper at an acute angle

Sheet thickness 0.4 mm.
Shelf life - 1 year.

Most often, wafer paper is used for food printing. You can easily decorate a cake or cupcakes with pictures printed on this material. In addition to printing, edible paper can also be used independently. You can decorate the surface of the cake with it or make individual elements from it. For example, flowers.

Wafer paper, or, as it is also called, rice paper, contains water, vegetable oil, starch - nothing else. In terms of its composition, as you can see, wafer paper is much simpler food product than the same mastic. The thickness of the paper is thin and dense. For making flowers, we recommend using the thin version. Working with wafer paper is somewhat similar to working with regular paper. True, there are some peculiarities. Firstly, wafer paper is quite fragile, it is difficult to bend it in half without creasing. Secondly, this material behaves a little capriciously with liquids; it easily absorbs water and melts if there is too much of it.

Floristry is always an entertaining and creative process. Sugar flowers have not caused much surprise for a long time; they have been used for confectionery decoration since the end of the 19th century. Waffle floristry does not have such a long history, but it is no less interesting.

For a waffle flower, take:

• thin wafer paper;
• food coloring (gel or dry);
• titanium dioxide;
• wire;
• tape;
• stamens for flowers;
• stencils for petals (you can use metal cuttings);
• food markers;
• scissors;
• tassels

Cut 12-13 centimeters from the flower wire, bend it in half, place a bunch of stamens on the bend and twist the wire in a spiral. Secure everything with tape. When working, the tape should be pulled slightly, the coating should be dense, and the stamens should be collected together.

Let's outline the stencils for the petals using an edible felt-tip pen on thin wafer paper. We took a set of cuttings for peonies and chose shapes measuring 5 and 6 centimeters. You need about 13-15 petals of each length per flower. Cut out each petal and, if desired, add a few random cuts at the end. This way the flower will look more natural and alive.

Dilute a drop of dye with a small amount of water and add a little titanium dioxide. So the color will not be so saturated. Here you can play with combinations: from dark to light shades, or mix several similar colors. Don't limit your imagination - flowers can be not only white or pink, but also gray, black, blue... When coloring the petals, try not to soak them too much in water. Paint 2-3 petals at a time. If you paint everything at once, they will have time to dry and it will be quite difficult to attach them.

We start collecting the flower with smaller petals.

We collect in a circle. First we attach the first three petals, then all the rest one by one. If desired, some of the petals can be bent in either direction. After the small petals are finished, we begin to attach the large ones. Try to secure each of the petals at the base, but do not press the remaining part too tightly against each other.