Every year as one turns a year older and wiser we tend to celebrate it over a scrumptious yet an appealing pound of birthday cake. As birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to have more cake, then why not we try out different types of cakes on birthdays. Trying that same old, regular birthday cake flavour or kind happens to be quite boring and seems like quite lazy of one to say yes to exploring something new on your birthday, every year. There are different kinds of cakes like designer cakes, photo or personalised birthday cakes, cupcakes, jar cakes, pastries, vegan cakes and party themed cakes to choose from. Talking of the different varieties of cake that the baking industry has got to offer, one such kind is that of photo cakes over which a photo of your choice can be printed and laid as a yummy frosting. But the question is, how is that possible? How do bakers bake such a cake which has got a picture and is edible at the same time?
The thought of designing something like a photo cake was quite intimidating because of the appeal it exuberates. But all thanks to the advancement in technology which made this thought not just a thought but a reality, instead. Bakers need the photograph from you which you wish to top your birthday cake with, as and when you place the order with them. You can send a digital photograph, if not then a photo from photo albums would even do. But for that, the baker would be required to scan the photograph over to have it to themselves in the digital format. Next step would be to take a print out of the photograph using a regular printer that we basically have at home or some that bakers have in common. But the only change is we need edible ink to print such photos and the sheet to print it on. For these two purposes, bakers use icing paper or frosting sheets to print the photograph on. Initially, the icing paper was used to be made fully edible as it was prepared with rice. Today, there is a variety of frosting or icing paper being made available in the market and they are mostly made of edible materials like potatoes, cornstarch, and sugar, and starch mixtures. In the same manner, edible inks for printing an edible photograph is made of sugar and food colouring, which are even made easily available for sale over some good baking stores.
When printed and placed on top of a regular cake base of any flavour, an edible photo seems to be no such significant taste or texture. They basically dissolve in the moisture of the cake, quite just like the topping of the cake. When applied to the cake base, it appears as if the cake was baked along with the picture laid on top of it. And that’s how photo cakes came into being and have been trending ever since then.