You can pick the flavor, the filling and any of a variety of other options to customize your favorite foods – especially when you're making them at home. But a custom cookie isn't quite the same as a personalized one and Gourmet Impressions knows this. The company was started in 2002 and makes "food embossers" that allow you to put your name, your brand or a message right on your food, quickly and easily.
The food embossers come in two different designs, a roller and a stamp. Each works essentially the same way, imprinting words onto your desired foods, though the roller is designed to work best when you have a larger surface area to decorate and wish to repeat the message. The both work with both standard messages (Happy Birthday, etc.) and can be further customized with snap-in letters.
All in all, the idea of Gourmet Impressions is a neat one and it is certainly easier than trying to carve a message into a cake or other food by hand. I have to question how well the imprinted message would maintain its shape on something like a yeast-raised pizza crust during baking, but until I have a chance to see it in action, I'm not going to judge all aspects of potential performance. Since the problems wouldn't occur with imprinted fruits, cheeses, sandwiches and some other types of pastry, I'll stick with my original feeling that it's a fun idea and that it won't be too long before we start seeing some of this food-embossing put to use by restaurants and other businesses. I definitely wouldn't mind having a home version to play around with, either!
Where can you buy this and how much is it? It looks like so much fun.
Their website isn't too clear about that. You can inquire about prices and product availability. I was disappointed not to see a list of retails to go check one out or at least see an option to order online. Hopefully they will work on that.
This looked really cool. Just like Nicole, I have to wonder how clear the message really is on certain items. I was clicking on the pics that showed different food items and they definitely seemed "doctored" to make the letters looks super crisp and clear. I don't know if they are just supposed to be used as an example and not the actual result or not. Neat idea though!