NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A 3D food printer sounds like something out of Star Trek, but it's not out of this world. It's up and running at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan -- and in five years, it could be in your home.
As part of a project at Cornell University, a group of scientists and students built a 3D printer and began testing it out with food. The device attaches to a computer, which works as the brain behind the technology.
It doesn't look like a traditional printer; it's more like an industrial fabrication machine. Users load up the printer's syringes with raw food -- anything with a liquid consistency, like soft chocolate, will work. The ingredient-filled syringes will then print icing on a cupcake. Or it'll print something more novel (i.e., terrifying) -- like domes of turkey on a cutting board.
You hand [the computer] three bits of info: a shape that you want, a description of how that shape can be made, and a description of how that material that you want to print with works, says Jeff Lipton, a Cornell grad student working on the project. Lipton is pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering.
