Bite Silicon Valley: 3D printed confections with ChefJet Pro

SANTA CLARA, CALIF.---Some of the finest chefs in the world collided with ambitious tech entrepreneurs over the weekend at Bite SV Silicon Valley, a three-day summit held at Levi’s Stadium to discuss the convergence of food and technology today.

One technology already showing promise — or at least prototypes — is 3D printing. Just a few years ago, the medium was barely scratching the surface, only supporting a few malleable materials such as high quality plastic.

Touted as the world’s first professional 3D food printer, ChefJet Pro is a a large format, full-color 3D printer ready for churning out bespoke candies, cupcake toppers, and logo-stamped sugar cubes with an added single flavor with full color, photographic-quality.

Thus far, ChefJet boasts a build speed of approximately two vertical inches per hour (i.e. 100 candies per hour). The cake topper pictured above was said to take roughly four hours to print two copies, according to ChefJet reps on site this weekend.

The saccharine materials certainly hold up as intricate adornments, but they are more delicate than they look.

When holding the bite-sized, blackberry-flavored samples, the colorful geometric shape broke into crumbs when pressed between my thumb and my index finger with an ever-so-slight bit of force.

A better (and more sturdy) example of what ChefJet can add to a place was found a few tables down at the station of Chef Mei Lin, champion of the most recent season of Top Chef.

Lin served a twist on one of her finale winning dishes from the show, handing out samples of a delectable passionfruit curd with bee pollen and raspberry — topped off with a 3D printed, flower-shaped sugar garnish.

Personally (although I tend to favor salt and savory over sweet), the addition of the sugar garnish was refreshing, not only balancing the tartness of the custard but also adding a welcome bit of crunch and texture to the dish. Thus, 3D printed food doesn’t have to be just about art but functional (not to mention tasty) too.

However, pastry chefs and gourmands with a sweet tooth will be salivating to try these for a bit longer.

ChefJet Pro (pictured above at CES 2015) isn’t available to the masses yet.

In fact, as 3D Systems reps told ZDNet at the Bite SV show on Saturday, there is only one model ready for production thus far.