While the 3D printing industry continues to develop more sophisticated methods for printing food — tasty food with natural ingredients — an array of food-related innovations have cropped up. While we’re still awaiting that four-course, 3D printed, gourmet meal, we can enjoy the benefits of kitchen-oriented 3D printing.
This holiday season, experienced and amateur bakers alike can design their own cookie cutters, from jack-o-lanterns to autumn leaves and snowflakes to reindeer. Thanks to the new web-based company, CookieCaster, you can now custom-design and 3D print your own cookie cutters.
The process is easy and there are options for non-artists and the artistically-inclined alike. The more adventurous designer or perhaps a child doing his or her first baking with Grandma can start from the CookieCaster drawing board and free-form a design. Alternatively, you can upload an existent image — a selfie, a photo of the family dog, your daughter’s favorite pop star, Batman, Santa Claus, or the recently decorated family Christmas tree — and the “magic trace” option on the CookieCaster drawing board will take it from there, creating your custom-made cookie cutter.
For those who prefer to go the more traditional route, there is a gallery of pre-designed cookie cutters from which to choose, many of which have been shared by other users. The gallery features 197 pages of designs ranging from individual letters from the alphabet, numbers, fairly rudimentary clouds, teddy bears, crosses, baby shoes, stars, moons, and gingerbread men to more complex cookie cutters — the US Marine Corps insignia; four separate pieces to a puzzle; a marijuana leaf; a fairy; a detailed, lacy snowflake; a spider; and even a complicated silhouette of somebody’s child, “Caleb.”
Once you have completed your design, the site creates a 3D model for you, which you can print on your own 3D printer. If you don’t own a 3D printer, you can save your design and then use an online printing service like Shapeways or Sculpteo to print your cookie cutter, which will be shipped to you. Both sites allow you to upload a variety of different files.
Whether for personal use, for the holidays, or as a gift idea, CookieCasters custom cookie cutters are a fun and creative new way to exploit 3D printing, including going through the site’s simple step-by-step process for learning how to create basic 3D models. CookieCasters doesn’t provide recipes for the cookies themselves, but that’s where tradition — and Grandma–comes in. Have you created your own cookie cutter design with this web app? Show it off in the CookieCaster forum thread on 3DPB.com.