Are you thinking about buying an edible printer? They are an easy way to add wow factor to cakes, but there are some things you should know about them before taking the plunge into printing your own images.
If you are reading this, chances are you're thinking about investing in an edible printer. Printing edible images is an easy way to add that wow factor to cakes and cookies, but printing your own images isn't for everyone! Here is a run down of things you should know before you buy one.
An edible printer is an ordinary printer that uses food colour as inks to print with. You cannot interchange regular inks and food inks in the same printer, as regular inks are not food safe. The printer must be new and unused before putting in the edible ink cartridges. The best printers for edible printing on are rear feeding printers. Bottom feeding printers can't handle the extra thickness of icing sheets as well.
We offer a Canon A3 printer, which comes with a pack of A4 edible sheets and a set of refillable edible ink cartridges. They can be set up wirelessly or can be plugged into your computer, although Canon does not supply those cables. They can be bought at Officeworks, though.
The A3 is a robust machine (and what we use here at Lollipop Cake Supplies to print customer orders so we can confirm it is a workhorse!), but it does take up more space than A4 printers. The benefit is that you can print on A4 sheets and pre cut circle sheets, and then have the option to print on larger A3 sheets if the need arises as well.
You can print on icing sheets, wafer paper and wafer card. We print mostly on icing sheets for our customers here as they give the brightest colours and crispest printing. They are the most expensive option though. Wafer card (our double density wafer paper) comes in second for print quality. Wafer paper is the cheapest option, but the vibrancy of the colours is reduced.
The ink is made up of specially formulated food colouring. They come in black, magenta, cyan and yellow, just as regular ink does. Just like with regular printing, these colours are mixed together to print the colours needed in the image. Edible inks are pretty cool and generally true to the picture you are printing. They come out nice and vibrant and only take a minute or two to dry (depending on how heavily coloured your image is). Sometimes though, edible ink cannot replicate exactly what its non-edible counterparts can, and some colours will look different to what you see on the computer screen. This mostly affects pinks (hot pink especially prints more like red), purples and turquoise / teal type colours. You can play around in the printer settings and adjust the colours to see if that helps, but unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done to change the colours drastically. Edible inks also tend to deepen over time so if you have a particularly dark image, it may get much darker after a couple of days.
Not if you don't want to. The cartridges we supply with the printers are refillable, so you can buy the edible ink bottles and a packet of syringes and fill them up yourself. There are at least 5 refills in each bottle, so it’ll work out much more cost effective than buying a new set each time. Instructions are supplied with the ink cartridges, so don’t throw those away when you unpack your printer! Also, don’t throw away the orange cradles that are on the bottom of the cartridges, either. You’ll need those for a much less messy filling experience.
If you can, it’s definitely worth having two sets of cartridges, so you can rotate them out. Ink always runs out at the time when you have to print 20 sheets and you have half an hour to print them. If you have another set you can just swap them in as you don’t want to have to mess around with filling cartridges under pressure.
You can use Photoshop, Gimp, Word etc to set up images. There is also specific edible image software you can purchase online too. If you google “edible image software” there will be quite a few results.
We have word templates you can use for the pre-cut toppers. Email us at info@lollipopcakesupplies.com.au and we can email them to you if you have bought the sheets from us.
Yes... and no! There is a steep learning curve when first printing. You need to get used to how the printer feeds in the sheets, and you may have to help the sheet feed through properly. The clear acetate strip on the top of the sheet can confuse the printer too. Sometimes you get roller marks on the sheet. As with everything in life, practise makes progress and the more you print and play around with the printer, the easier it'll get. We do supply instructions and trouble shooting leaflets with our printers, and you can call us too if something is not going right. Just a word of warning, and I say this with kindness: if you are someone who is easily frustrated, doesn't get on with technology or doesn't like to take the time to work out problems, then printing your own images might not be for you. Instead, maybe order an edible image print through us, and let us take on the stress!
Edible inks tend to dry out quicker than non-edible inks, so it is very important to print something at least once a week to stop this happening. You can just print a page on plain paper and save your precious edible sheets!
It’s also worth running roller cleans and bottom plate cleans every month or so just to keep them running smoothly.
Make sure to check ink levels regularly and don’t let the cartridges run completely dry. Manually check the ink levels by taking the cartridges out of the printer and check how much ink is left in the reservoir. If there is no ink that you can see in one of the chambers, the cartridge is empty.
If you buy a printer from us, we are here to help you out with any issues you may be having. Is the paper not feeding? Are you getting smudge marks? We can help! Canon will not help you with any technical issues once they find out you have used edible ink, whereas we will!
You get a pack of paper and ink cartridges included in the printer pack, so you have all you need to start printing straight away. You’ll also get a detailed instruction booklet in the pack too, which should help you through most situations.
There is a 12-month warranty with Lollipop Cake Supplies from the date of purchase. If you are having issues, please contact us at info@lollipopcakesupplies.com.au or call us on 07 3102 1246 and we will let you know what to do next.
Check out our YouTube channel and visit the 'Edible Printer' playlist where we upload edible printer troubleshooting tips and tricks. You can find it here.