The Sugar Lab
Sugar
3D printing food is the holy grail of additive manufacturing, Modern Meadow are convinced it is going to change the world, no more farming for cattle, NASA are convinced it is going to change another world as they look for ways to feed and medicate astronauts on the way to Mars.
The Sugar Lab are 3D printing foodstuff but with the aim to amaze rather than change. Husband wife team, Kyle and Liz are using sugar as the raw materials, in a similar way to powder is used during SLS printing, to create beautiful, edible sugar structures for “mega-cool cakes”.
The pair got the idea during their time at Southern California Institute of Architecture, “We wanted to make our friend Chelsea a birthday cake, but we didn't have an oven, so we decided to try to 3D print a cake instead. After a period of trial and error that lasted well beyond her actual birthday, we managed to print Chelsea a tiny cupcake topper that spelled her name in cursive sugar. She loved it! We thought other people might like 3D printed sugar, too, so when we graduated, we started The Sugar Lab officially, in our studio here in Silver Lake.”
Why somebody would have a 3D printer but not an oven we’re not too sure, however there’s no denying that these are stunning pieces of work. During a visit to DOES Liverpool we saw a sugar sculpture version of their logo which had been produced using their laser cutter. Not too sure I’d fancy eating that though, bit sawdusty…
The Sugar Lab, on the other hand, are creating their bespoke pieces as decoration for cakes, “With our background in architecture and our penchant for complex geometry, we're bringing 3D printing technology to the genre of mega-cool cakes. 3D printing represents a paradigm shift for confections, transforming sugar into a dimensional, structural medium. It makes it possible to design, digitally model and print an utterly original sugar sculpture on top of a cake. All of our projects are custom. The design process begins from scratch, when we hear from you.”
