Edible paper: rice, waffle, sugar. Printing on edible paper

Modern technologies are developing at super-fast rates. Scientists have already realized many of the ideas of science fiction writers. Very soon the world will see interactive television, and everyone can go on a weekend for a space excursion. The latest development of technologists was edible paper. Details about this miracle read in the article.

What it is

Standard edible paper is very similar to a simple paper sheet. The texture is transparent or more dense. Can be pure white or have a yellowish or grayish shade depending on the ingredients. The most common formats are thickness 0,4-0,7 mm, width or diameter depending on whether the shape of the sheet is rectangular or round, 22 cm or 33 cm. It is fresh or slightly sweet in taste, practically without calories and without a smell.

A bit of history

The first edible paper (nori) appeared in Japan almost four hundred years ago. Modern rice, waffle, sugar and other food paper appeared quite recently - at the end of the twentieth century.

In 2003, an American chemist, Tara McHugh, presented to the whole world her new invention - edible wrapping paper, in which it is possible to wrap sandwiches, hamburgers and anything at all, and then eat together with the contents.

Other inventors immediately picked up the idea and began to create edible business cards, books, advertising.

What do edible paper do

Traditionally, the basis for the preparation of this product are rice flour, water and salt. Often used tapioca - starch product, which is obtained from the roots of cassava edible - a valuable tropical plant.

Waffle paper is made from potato or rice starch, vegetable oil and water.

Sugar edible paper includes ingredients such as sugar or other sweeteners, food-grade dry molasses, sorbitol syrup, water, potassium sorbate, palm oil, food additives, emulsifiers and stabilizers, modified cellulose.

Recently, the inventors have been experimenting with ingredients, using specially processed vegetable or fruit and berry puree to prepare the product, adding flavorings and food colorings. As a result, the edible paper turns pink with the taste of strawberries, greenish with broccoli, orange with a taste of mango.

Nori - a unique food paper from some species of red algae. Asian cuisine has been using this original Japanese product for more than three hundred years.

Kinds of edible paper

Today there are such kinds of edible paper:

• Wafer;
• Rice;
• Sugar;
• Glazed;
• Shokotransfernaya;
• Vegetable;
• Fruit and berry;
• Nori.

Where the product is used

Edible paper is very widely used in cooking:

• For the preparation of rolls, rolls, pancakes, chips;
• Edible photo printing for decorating cakes ;
• For decorating various dishes;
• As a packing material;
• For the production of advertising brochures, business cards, even books.

Further we will consider in more detail how edible paper is used.

Tasty dishes from food paper

Rice paper is used to make "spring" rolls, which have a very light taste. Vietnamese prepare from it nemy - pancakes or rolls with stuffing. The filling for rice paper can be very different, but it is traditionally used pork forcemeat, dried mushrooms, beans, carrots with greens, hard varieties of pasta.

Before using, rice paper is wetted, then it is easily twisted, taking the desired shape. Next, pancakes or fry (preferably sesame oil), or eat without heat treatment (then the filling should be ready for use).

From the nori Japanese dishes are prepared: rice cakes moti, kolobok onigiri, classical rolls. More and more popular is the nori, decorated with laser prints. And from the nori they cook wonderful chips.

Photo printing

Printing on edible paper is gaining more and more fans. To do this, use waffle, rice or sugar paper. It is fed into a special inkjet printer for food printing, which uses food-grade ink from dyes that are safe for health.

Most often, edible paper with printed pictures decorate the top of the cake, pre-moistened with sweet syrup and greased with vegetable cream, sugar glue, marzipan or mastic. To give the picture clarity, the confectioners are advised to grease the food sheet with glaze. This will also help avoid flaking during storage or transportation.

Sugar edible paper for cakes allows you to get the most bright, clear and high-quality picture.

After imprinting, the edible leaf must dry well at room temperature, or it is placed for ten seconds in the freezer. Only after drying food paper with photoprint can decorate the cake.

For handmade art, glazed paper works best.

Artistic decoration of dishes

Food paper is used not only to decorate the top of the confectionery, but also to decorate the side parts. At the same time, food gel, jelly glaze or mastic are used for fixation.

Wafer paper is the best for decoration. Confectioners are not advised to decorate the sides of the cake with sugar paper, since it gives an unwanted wave or ugly bubbles.

Also from edible paper you can make any decorations with scissors - Christmas trees, snowflakes, hearts and other festive tinsel. Only with food paper you need to handle more accurately than with ordinary paper, try not to bend it.

Decorated sweets can not be kept in the freezer to avoid condensation, or in a damp room. In general, high humidity is highly undesirable for decorations of edible paper, including food photo printing.

Food Packaging

Packaging edible paper is the latest innovation. The author of the idea is American chemist Tara McHugh. She offered the world packaging that you can eat with the contents. In this case, they can be tasteless, so as not to disturb the composition of the main dish, or to have a taste of seasoning, milk sauce, ketchup, mashed potatoes, strawberries, mangoes and the like.

Tara McHugh is confident that her invention is the future, it will help to get rid of the world of polyethylene, plastic and foil. However, there is a lot of but: the packaging is designed to keep the product from contamination, to extend the storage period. And who will follow the expiration date of the food packaging itself? How to overcome the habit of buyers to touch the goods with their hands? In fact then they will leave on food packing millions of microbes and elementary dirt.

In this regard, much further went the student from Kazan Ivan Zakharov, who suggested using not edible packages, but water-soluble, environmentally friendly materials. His revolutionary discovery is still at an experimental stage, but behind him is the future. To decompose a simple plastic bag, it takes four hundred years, and the film Zakharov under the influence of water turns into jelly in a few hours, and a day later disappears completely.

Assortment and prices for products

For serial and professional production of cakes, pastries and other sweets, printers for food printing, food inks, edible paper are offered. The price for all these accessories is quite high:

• Food printer costs from 10,000 rubles;
• Food ink - from 3500 rubles per liter;
• 25 sheets of sugar paper - from 2500 rubles;
• 25 sheets of a shock-transfer paper - from 3000 rubles;
• 25 sheets of waffle paper - from 700 rubles.

To decorate a home product, you can buy ready-made pictures on food paper. Buy edible photos can be quite inexpensive. Depending on the size it can cost only 150 rubles. If desired, you can order an edible print on your own sketch.

How to make edible paper

This is a painstaking and complex process. In Asia, this case is allowed only for women who are specially trained in difficult crafts. The production of food paper by hand consists of four stages:

1. To begin with, soak rice in cold water for eight hours. After the rice is very carefully washed and again soaked in cold water, slightly salted.
2. After a few hours, the rice will swell, and then go to the second stage. Rice is finely chopped with a special knife, after that the crumb is poured onto a clean cloth stretched over a large container with boiling water (for example, a pan).
3. Over hot steam the rice crumb is kept for 5-7 minutes, then it is moved to a bamboo grid. Today Asian women are less scrupulous and use wooden and even plastic gratings.
4. Grate with rice crumb is taken to fresh air, where the mixture is gently leveled with a thin layer and dried well. The result is a rice leaf.

Asian cuisine has a lot of recipes, for which a variety of seasonings are added to the rice cut. It turns rice paper with a spicy or spicy taste.

Today, the food industry has completely mastered the manufacture of edible paper. All stages are automated, and with the use of special equipment the process takes quite a bit of time.