The tech is still early and so far the only ingredients which can be used have to be liquid enough to be squeezed out of a syringe (cake frosting, peanut butter and cheese are all viable!), but Creative say cooking the food as it prints could be part of the future of the machine. 

The benefits of printing food are potentially numerous: choosing which ingredients to use means people know what is going into their printed food and are able to make healthier choices if they wish. The creators suggest cooking times would be drastically reduced when cooking food. They also envisage that as blueprints for cooking would be digital, people making food in their own homes would be able to create complex foods without possessing culinary skills themselves.

"People like to play with food. They like to express themselves in food. This allows them to express themselves in not just what the food is made of, but what its shaped like. We can make health food more fun, interesting, and appealing with this technology. What kid wouldn't eat a space shuttle, even one made of peas?" says Team Leader of the project, Jeffrey Ian Lipton.