These 3D Printed Holiday Candies Are Edible Works of Art

updated Dec 24, 2020
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Credit: Sugar Lab

People have made amazing things with 3D printing technology, like chairs, lamps, dorm art, and all kinds of tiny houses. Among the latest additions to that list are intricate Christmas ornaments made of sugar.

Los Angeles-based confectioner Sugar Lab’s holiday line looks more like art than candy. There’s a modular snowman kit that lets you build a snowman even while it’s 60 degrees outside. There are vanilla-flavored holiday marshmallows shaped like Christmas icons: a holiday sweater, a gnome, a penguin, a stocking, and more. Even the lumps of coal look artful.

Credit: Sugar Lab

The showstoppers might be the candy cane sugar cubes and crystalline ornaments, which take advantage of the 3D printer’s ability to make perfect, crisp shapes that would be extremely difficult to replicate at scale by hand.

Credit: Sugar Lab

The couple behind Sugar Lab has been using 3D printing since before they started the company in 2012. According to Fast Company, they experimented with the technology in architecture school, using materials like sawdust and cement. Since then, according to Sugar Lab’s website, they’ve invented “a new kind of culinary printer that uses powdered sugar and water,” rather than the more common method of extrusion.

Credit: Sugar Lab

“By utilizing this unique process we were able to create gravity defying shapes that had never been seen before in the culinary space,” they explain. “Our process is surprisingly similar to the way that pastry chefs already work–we separate wet and dry ingredients and then carefully mix them back together to create what’s basically a super fondant.”

Innovative and delicious!