April 08, 2009

How Can I Create My Own Photo Cakes?

By Kara Hiltz

PrinTip: Replace Your Ink and Paper With Edible Equivalents

You've probably seen photo cakes advertised in cutting-edge bakeries. You bring in an embarrassing photo of your sister as a kid and the bakery magically prints the photo right on her 40th birthday cake! Instant payback for the hemorrhoid cream she gave you for your 40th birthday.

The downside, of course, is that you pay a stiff price for such a personalized cake. It might surprise you to find out that bakeries don't use fancy equipment to make these high-tech photo cakes. In fact, you yourself can print a cake photo right from your own home photo printer. No bakery needed.

KopyKake to the Rescue

With the explosion of digital photography, it's worth seeking new ways to put your photos to good use. You can add your photos to nearly any product now, including coffee mugs, afghans, and t-shirts — if you're willing to pay the price.

You can't make most of these products in your own home because they require special printing and manufacturing equipment. The same held true for photo cakes until recently. Now you can just swap out your ink and paper to print edible frosting photos right from your printer. All you need to do is purchase edible ink cartridges and print-ready frosting sheets.

Kopykake's KopyJet Cake Decorating System contains everything you need. The site offers edible ink cartridges and frosting sheets that work with Canon and Epson printers. Kopykake also offers you a free download of Desktop Decorator, cake-decorating software, although you can use any other design program you like.

The supplies for printing your own cake photos seem affordable if you often bake or buy cakes for special events. Depending on the size of the frosting sheet, which come in popular cake shapes and sizes, you can expect to spend $28 for a 24-pack of frosting sheets — a little more than a dollar per sheet. As for the edible ink cartridges, they cost anywhere between $12.50 and $100 depending on how many colors your printer uses and what type of printer you own. On average, you can expect to spend about $70 for most four-color ink systems.

KopyKake offers a compatible printer guide, which lists compatible printer cartridges.

Once you have completed the setup, printing consists of replacing your ink cartridges with the edible color ink cartridges and loading your printer with a frosting sheet as opposed to paper. You can find more detailed step-by-step instructions on Sugarcraft.com.

Vines and fancy frosting borders make pretty cakes, but nothing beats a picture of your parent's wedding photo on their golden anniversary.

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