The impossible Pasta

This project is a collaboration with Jifei Ou.

Using a CNC gantry that Jifei built, we 3d printed pasta dough into edible gel support.

We were able to create noodle shapes that never existed before like chain-shaped pasta, 10m long noodle and the pasta cube that you can see on the left. The dish can be heated in the microwave, which will result in the dough cooking and the gel melting into a soup.

The gel support was made of Kellogel F, which is a high acyl Gellan gum. The Gel was blended after it had set and centrifuged to get a smooth and mostly transparent, edible support medium. The blending of the gel also results in the formation of micro-particles that form a fluid gel with the appropriate pseudoplastic properties: it behaves as a solid at low shear and as a liquid under high shear. Thus, the printing head is able to move freely in the printing bed and the gel self heals behind it, while still holding the printed pasta in place.