A Printer That Can Cook a Photo of Your Face Into a Pancake

Remember that Taiwanese machine that can print a photo of your face onto the foam of a latte? Here’s something along the same lines that’s just as quirky: there’s a new printer that can cook a photo of your face into a pancake.

Created by the Bristol, UK-based design company Kinneir Dufort, the machine doesn’t just burn some kind of design into the surface of a cooked pancake — it actually cooks the photo in by carefully applying different layers of batter to the cooking surface at different times.

This method causes different portions of the pancake to cook to different colors, allowing a photograph to emerge.

If you’re still confused, here’s a video showing how this layer cooking technique can be done manually by hand (this is more of a drawing than a photo being printed, though; a machine is much more precise):

Kinneir Dufort’s pancake photo printer uses a digital camera, embedded face recognition and tracking software, and CNC (Computer Numerical Control) technology to capture a face and dispense the batter in exactly the right places.

They think restaurants could use the technology to provide a fun and interactive experience for diners in the future. Imagine walking into a restaurant, posing for a quick photo, and then seeing your face smiling back at you from the pancake that emerges from the kitchen. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, and this latest invention shows that it’s definitely possible.

(via Kinneir Dufort via Laughing Squid)

---

Image credits: Photographs by Kinneir Dufort