How Do Edible Ink Printers Work, And Should You Get One?

If you’re wondering how edible ink printers work and whether you should add one to your cake decorating business, read this first!

Edible ink printers are great for creating custom cakes, but most of the people I know who get them end up throwing them out the window in frustration at some point.

I printed about 100-150 pages a week, and I still got irritated trying to figure out what the printers were doing sometimes. They’re a little complicated to use, and extremely complicated to maintain, and it takes time to master their tricks.

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How do edible ink printers work?

Edible ink printers are regular inkjet printers, but they use special ink cartridges that contain food coloring inks that have been formulated to flow evenly through the printer.

The edible inks are used to print onto wafer paper or icing sheets, which are types of edible media that can be applied to cakes after printing.

Because the cartridges don’t have regular ink, the colors that are printed can vary widely from printer to printer. You may need to adjust the printer settings to adjust the color balance, and this is one of the main challenges with food coloring printers.

printed edible money — Edible money printed on two different printers

When I was selling wafer paper, it was a constant battle to get the colors right for specific things. There were many times when I spent more time trying to adjust the printer or the digital file than it took to print the thing.

It’s especially bad when you’re printing anything that’s a brand color, because those need to be fairly exact.

I never promised that I could match colors for that reason…You never know if a printer is going to decide to print one color brighter or darker from day to day, and it can ruin the printed item.

Magenta is the worst color to deal with in food coloring for some reason, but it was always the magenta ink that ruined everything.

Click to see my list of cake decorating and baking supplies in my Amazon shop.

How the print head is involved.

The print head is the part of the printer where the ink cartridges sit, and it’s generally the part of the printer that will cause problems when used with edible inks.

In inkjet printers, the print head disperses the ink by creating droplets that are basically sprayed onto the surface of the paper. It doesn’t know the difference between edible inks and non-edible ink, so it sprays the color out the same way.

The problem comes in the makeup of the edible ink, because it can’t contain the same chemicals that regular inks do to keep them moving freely through the print head.

Regular non-edible inks contain toxic chemicals that keep the ink flowing through the print head evenly.

Food coloring cartridges obviously don’t contain those chemicals, so the ink can flow through in different balances, which can affect the final color.

Printing with edible inks can give you very different results from printer to printer, so you have to plan for a fair amount of test prints and printed pages that won’t be usable.

You might also have to adjust the color settings on each printer to get the color to print the way that you want it to.

This can be done from the printer settings on the computer, or on the printer itself. Some printers don’t have a built-in settings panel, so all adjustments for those will have to be made from your computer’s control panel.

You can also adjust the image itself using color-correcting photo editing software like Photoshop to “trick” the printer into printing it a certain way.

Some printers tend to print one color more intensely than you would expect, even if you adjust the color settings.

This can sometimes be corrected if you change the printed image’s color in the opposite direction so it balances out how the printer wants to print it.

People have asked me how I get the edible money that I print to look as good as it does, but the truth is that not all of my printers work to make a good-looking edible hundred-dollar bill.

One of them refuses to print the file correctly at all, and I can’t even use it to print edible money unless I use a file that has a red tint to it. What prints well on one printer looks totally different on another one.

Edible paper printing for cakes

Printing wafer paper or icing sheets to use for cake wraps is a common use for edible ink printers. The main ingredient of edible wafer paper is potato starch, so the food coloring ink will be slightly absorbed into the paper and can give you a more muted look to the print.

Icing sheets are made from sugar and other ingredients that end up as a plastic-like surface that is less porous than wafer paper, so it will usually give you a brighter color.

However, the color can also spread slightly after time, because the sugar in the surface of the icing sheet can absorb the color and make the edges look softer.

Wafer paper and icing sheets never really “melt into the icing,” as some people say. They’ll both sit on the surface of the cake and soften so that you can cut through them, but they’re going to be noticeable as you eat the cake.

If party guests don’t want to eat them they can usually be peeled off of the cake and set aside.

If you’re choosing between the two, there are some differences to note. Icing sheets are thicker and come on a plastic backing sheet that you peel off before applying the sheet to the cake.

(For an article that goes into more depth on the differences between wafer paper and icing sheets, click here.)

They also have a sweeter flavor because they have sugar in them. Wafer paper is fairly tasteless, and doesn’t have a backing sheet. It also holds its shape better if you’re standing it up vertically, but it can curl when it absorbs moisture from the air.

Each type of edible paper has its advantages, so which one you use will probably just depend on your personal preference, or what you need to use it for.

Both can be used to wrap cakes, cover cookies, and place flat on the surface of sheet cakes. Wafer paper is the one to use if you want decorations that will stand up off of the surface of the cake or cupcakes.

For the Complete Guide To Wafer Paper, click here

Can you use a normal printer with edible ink?

Edible ink printers are normal printers that are used with special ink cartridges.

Because regular printer inks contain toxic chemicals that keep the ink flowing freely through the print head, edible ink cartridges should only be used in a printer that has NEVER been used with regular ink cartridges.

If the printer that you want to use has been used with inedible inks, the printer is considered to be contaminated for food use, and should not be used for edible ink printing.

Most of the edible ink printers on the market are Canon or Epson, so most of the available cartridges fit those printers, too.

You can buy a new printer and use it from the start with only edible ink cartridges, and it will then be considered an “edible ink printer.”

When you’re buying a printer to use for edible ink printing, make sure that there are edible ink cartridges available to fit the printer.

This is one situation where you want to buy the printer to fit the ink, not the other way around. You can check the availability of your ink on the various websites that sell edible ink cartridges (check out the next section for those links.)

I prefer Canon printers over Epson for edible ink printing because you can remove the print head from Canon printers.

This makes it a lot easier to clean them, and that’s something that you’ll probably be doing A LOT. For this reason, the eco-tank printers seem like they wouldn’t be the best choice for edible ink printing, it seems like they would get gummed up pretty frequently and could be really hard to clean out unless the print head is removable in those as well. Make sure to check before you buy.

wafer paper printing in a printer — Floral printed edible wafer paper

What is edible ink made from?

Edible inks are made from regular food coloring that has been formulated to work with inkjet printers, dry quickly, and to keep its color after being applied to the edible paper.

Most edible inks are formulated with an FDA-approved food coloring dye, plus a combination of water, glycerine, alcohol or citric acids, polypropylene glycol, and preservatives.

Edible ink is generally Kosher and Vegan because the ingredients are basically the chemical color plus the other liquids that carry the color.

It’s important to buy edible ink from reputable companies, because it’s a food product. If the company selling the ink isn’t US-based, or from the country that you live in, it might not meet the standards that have been set for food in your country.

There are a few companies that specialize in selling edible inks and edible printer supplies, including Icing Images, Ink Edibles, Ink 4 Cakes, and Icing Inks.

It’s a good practice to choose one company to buy from and stick with them, because you’ll get more consistent results in your printing. Colors can vary from company to company, so the less variation you have, the better.

For an article with the specific ingredients of the ink that I used, click here.

How often should you use an edible ink printer?

Edible ink printers should be used on a regular basis in order to keep the print head from developing clogs.

The general guideline is to use the printer at least once a week so that the colors can flow through the print head. This will usually prevent dried ink from clogging the print head, but more frequent use is better.

Because food coloring inks can’t contain the same types of chemicals that regular ink has, it’s not possible to prevent the ink from drying out inside the print head, and this can result in colors not printing correctly.

The more often you use the printer, the less time it has to dry out in between uses.

I have three printers that I use at any given time, and I rotate the print jobs that I have between them so that I use each one at least every other day.

This means that the inks don’t have much time to dry out inside the printer head, and I don’t have to worry about the printer getting clogged because of being used infrequently.

This doesn’t mean that the printers don’t stop working or get clogged, though. Regardless of how often you use the printer, it’s very common to have an edible ink printer stop printing a color completely.

When that happens you’ll need to clean the print head to get the ink flowing through the printer correctly. This could mean doing a simple cleaning cycle, or removing the print head entirely to rinse it thoroughly and make sure there’s no ink inside of it.

I probably have to clean the print heads on my printers about once every two or three weeks. The reason that I have to clean them is that they get clogged from too much ink going through, though, not from drying out.

Using the printers on a regular basis will send a lot of ink through the print head, and that can basically overwhelm the print head with too much ink!

How do you clean edible printers?

To clean an edible printer, you will need to remove the clogged ink that’s lodged inside the print head. These clogs can prevent the ink from flowing through the print head and will result in colors not printing correctly, or at all.

You can try a few methods to remove these clogs, including running a cleaning cycle through the printer control panel, or by manually cleaning the print head with water and non-toxic print head cleaner.

To check for a clogged print head if colors aren’t printing correctly, try the following corrective measures in this order:

1. Check to make sure the cartridge is full and has food coloring flowing through it.

2. Run a cleaning cycle through the printer control panel, and print a test page to see if the colors are printing correctly.

3. If the colors aren’t printing correctly, either try a deep cleaning cycle through the control panel, or remove the print head from the printer and clean it manually. If you can’t remove the print head, you can clean it by using a cleaning solvent cartridge that fits the machine and running a cleaning cycle.

4. After cleaning the print head manually, let it dry for a couple of hours and replace it in the printer.

5. Run another cleaning cycle to make sure the ink is flowing through the print head, then print another test page.

6. If the colors are printing correctly, you’re done. Print one page that has a good assortment of colors on it to make sure that the colors are printing correctly.

7. If the colors aren’t printing correctly, remove the print head and clean it manually again.

8. Repeat from step 6.

If the print head isn’t removable because that’s how the printer is designed, you may be able to purchase cleaning cartridges that can be used with a cleaning cycle. Most Canon printers have removable print heads, and Epson Printers don’t.

Sometimes using a steam cleaning tool to inject steam through the print head system will soften up any ink clogs and allow them to be flushed out easier.

This can work to help loosen clogs in the print heads that aren’t removable before you run a cleaning cycle for the printer.

There will be times when the print head refuses to print correctly, even after being cleaned repeatedly. The problem with edible ink printing is that it’s very a temperamental process, and sometimes the printers just stop working.

I find that my edible ink printers “die” faster than my regular printers do, so plan on replacing your printers a lot more often than you might expect.

I have 3 edible ink printers available to use at any given time, and I generally estimate that I’ll go through 6 printers a year, based on the volume of printing that I do.

How long do edible printers last?

Edible ink printers will generally work for at least 6 months to a year if they’re used on a daily basis, but it’s hard to state an average lifespan for them. Some printers last for a couple of years with regular use, and some stop working within six months.

Because the food coloring inks are formulated the way that they are, they can affect the printers in unpredictable ways.

In my experience, there will come a point where the printer just won’t work correctly anymore, and at that point the print head will need to be replaced, or the printer itself will need to be replaced.

The print head is considered a disposable part of the printer, so replacing it is an option. However, the cost of the print head can sometimes be high enough that buying a new printer becomes a reasonable option.

If you’re trying to decide whether to buy an edible ink printer, think about how often you would realistically use it, and whether you have time to maintain it.

If you’re experienced with them and with how they work, it doesn’t take much time to keep them operational. But if you won’t be using them on a weekly basis, I would say that the aggravation of dealing with their peculiar behavior might not be worth it.

It takes time to figure out the printing system in general, and each printer is going to behave slightly differently. If you have the time, and if you do a lot of birthday or special occasion cakes, an edible ink printer can be a good investment.

People like being able to personalize their cakes, and being able to offer this as an option can increase your profits and make decorating a sheet cake fast and easy. Just be ready for the possibility that you might hate dealing with the printer, and don’t feel bad if you choose to get rid of it for your own mental health!

Wafer paper supply list:

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