OhMyGosh, I just found the best new photocrafting site. (New to me, anyway.) Inkedibles.com is definitely fun! Their products are exactly what the name proclaims — ink you can eat. Of course I couldn’t wait to try it out. I had just the occasion, our 42nd anniversary. I quickly dug out a couple of pictures of us in our first home and had visions of celebrating with a cake like you see above.
It was really quite simple to order an edible version of my photo to put on a cake.I merged two photos into one with my own editing tools so that I had a single jpeg image. I was so excited about the idea that I didn’t spend much time exploring the site.
I found their custom print / cake toppers and choose the largest one (11″x17″). I uploaded my file and selected the “Basic Specialist Review” to ensure I’d be notified if anything was really out of whack. (I heard nothing). There are also options for more expert design and editing, for adding text to the image, and for including an actual card with the order.
I saw a small version of my image and placed the order.
I was very happy when I received the sheet. It was in a flat cardboard envelope. It came out perfectly inside a plastic bag with an additional plastic on the back of the sheet itself. Though it’s difficult to see in the plastic, the image was terrific. I was very surprised at how well the colors and details were preserved in the edible sheet.
InkEdibles says “The way this works is that the cartridges of the printer (food grade cartridge containers) are filled with edible ink, and this edible ink gets jetted onto the edible paper (frosting sheets) as they flow through the printer. The printer does not know that it is using edible ink as opposed to regular ink, and it does not know that it is being fed with edible paper (frosting sheets) as opposed to regular paper. What comes out of the printer is an image that is fully edible – both the sheet on which it is printed, and the ink which is used to generate the image. The frosting sheet is then applied onto a cake that is layered with frosting, and the frosting sheet absorbs into the cake frosting in a way that leaves the image beautifully pasted onto the cake and amazes customers and friends. “
So the only downside to this venture was the fact that I’m not really a baker. The final product did not look remotely like the picture at the top of this post.
I knew enough to frost the top of the cake so the sheet would be able to adhere to the frosting. However, my cake was pretty flat because I needed to use a cake pan large enough for the image. (Note that the blue rim is part of the platter itself.
I was pretty disappointed with the cake. I had no idea how to make cute curlicues around the edges and didn’t have enough frosting anyway. However, the image looked fantastic. My husband was amazed and ate it with pleasure. Inkedibles is a great addition to photocrafting! I’m already looking for another opportunity to use it.
HINTS:
- Measure your cake pan first! My cake topper was far too large for a simple box cake. In fact, I would recommend measuring the pan you’ll use and then planning an image that is somewhat smaller than the size of the cake itself.
- I had no problems working with the edible sheet. I avoided wet fingers as I would expect that to smudge the image.
- I did trim off some of the sides of the image with regular scissors.
- I’d read that it might not keep well but frankly, we thought the cake was better the second day. The topper had really settled into the frosting.
- The topper is a little stiff so you might almost expect it to be like eating paper but it’s not at all. It basically has no flavor of its own (so use lots of frosting!)
- Given that I’m not really much of a baker (box mix and canned frosting), I would consider going for smaller the next time. I think the cupcake toppers would be cute for a party. I wish I’d explored enough to find the Oreo cookie toppers as Oreos are a joke at our house. It would be great to decorate them with an appropriate image.
Photocrafting Fun 
This looks like so much fun! Your hints and recommendations are great; I think I will try a topper for our May anniversary.